A Voice from the Eastern Door
A Voice from the Eastern Door
First Nations organizations and the Federal government, along with class-action lawyers announced details of two agreements in principle that, if ratified, could end a nearly 15-year-old legal battle over the racist underfunding of child welfare services on reserves and in the Yukon.
The deal is worth $40 billion and would respectively spend $20 billion compensating tens of thousands of families victimized over the last three decades and another roughly $20 billion over five years on program reform.
It’s the largest settlement in Canadian history, Crown-Indigenous Relations Minister Marc Miller told reporters, “No amount of money can reverse the harms experienced by First Nations children.”
“However, historic injustices require historic reparations.”
Miller spoke at a press conference in Ottawa alongside other federal ministers, leaders from the Assembly of First Nations (AFN), Chiefs of Ontario, Nishnawbe Aski Nation and legal counsel representing First Nations youth and families.
Sotos Class Actions lawyer David Sterns said the deal may be the largest settlement in the world.
“The enormity of this settlement is due to one reason and one reason only,” Sterns said, “and that is the sheer size and scope of the harm that was inflicted on the class members as a result of a cruel and discriminatory First Nations family and child welfare system.”
According to APTN, “Cindy Blackstock, executive director of the First Nations Child and Family Caring Society, said her organization was not party to the compensation agreement, but called the draft agreement on long-term program reform a pathway to a final deal, adding that only when that deal is signed and implemented can youth be sure real change is coming.
Once final details are negotiated, the settlement agreements and distribution plan must be approved by the court and tribunal before implementation. By deciding to settle out of court, the Liberal government of Justin Trudeau could resolve the long and bitter legal fight.”
AFN and Blackstock filed the original human rights complaint in 2007 alleging Indian Affairs’ funding formula for First Nations child welfare known as Directive 20-1 and came into effect in 1991 and deemed racially discriminatory.
More than 200,000 children and families are impacted by this compensation agreement. This wasn’t and isn’t about parenting; it’s, in fact, about poverty,” said Blackstock.
As per APNT, “The complaint also alleged Canada failed to implement Jordan’s Principle, a child-first principle supported by the House of Commons in 2007 to ensure First Nations children have access to essential health care unhindered by jurisdictional bickering between governments over who should pay.
The Canadian government under then-Conservative prime minister Stephen Harper responded with what the AFN last year called an obstructionist campaign of administrative and legal delay tactics, deflection and non-compliance. Between 2008 and 2013, Canada motioned to have the complaint dismissed and tried to derail the process by retaliating against Blackstock, ejecting her from a meeting and spying on her.
At the same time, the Harper regime knowingly withheld more than 100,000 documents and emails it was obligated to disclose. The records, it turned out, were “prejudicial to Canada’s case and highly relevant” and the human rights tribunal scolded Canada for its “lack of transparency and blatant disregard” for the process.
While presiding Judge Paul Favel, who is Cree, was more restrained in his judgement, he sided with the tribunal nevertheless. He said it “reasonably exercised its discretion” to handle a complex case of discrimination while ensuring all issues, including compensation, were addressed fairly.
Canada responded with another appeal but promised to try and negotiate a solution by Dec. 31, 2021. Federal officials said they would only litigate if negotiations failed.
They added they won’t drop the appeal until a final deal is ratified.
They’ve pointed in the past to the fact the tribunal order compensates victims dating back to 2006, while the class action represents plaintiffs dating back to 1991 when the policy came into effect.
A huge portion of victims wouldn’t be paid as a result of the tribunal’s decision.
Lawyers told the press conference, $40,000 will be the minimum for those removed from their homes, but the amount they can receive won’t be capped.
The Truth and Reconciliation Commission, which probed the history and legacy of Canada’s residential schools. The commission’s first call to action was for government to immediately reduce the number of Indigenous children in state care. The modern child welfare system’s disturbing similarities to the residential school system is something the complainants and plaintiffs pointed out several times throughout litigation.
The original complaint noted that, at the time of filing, there were more First Nations children in state custody than at the height of residential schooling in the 1940s. There are now three times as many.
Residential schools were notoriously, chronically and knowingly underfunded. Ottawa’s funding policy, which consisted of a yearly per capita grant, created a financial incentive for churches to snatch as many pupils as possible to obtain the maximum grant.
Under modern child welfare Directive 20-1, Ottawa provided a fixed and insufficient pot of cash for prevention services but fully reimbursed agencies for apprehending children and maintaining them in out-of-home care.
This “perverse incentive,” legal filings said, ensured Canada continued to scoop children from their families, homes, communities and cultures by the thousands right up to present day.
The federal child welfare program was broken from the start. Most Canadians do not know this — that there was actually an incentive for child welfare agencies to remove children.
Blackstock said the human rights complaint would be closed when the tribunal is satisfied the discrimination has ceased.
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