The Modern Treaty Era
The First Nations Child & Family Caring Society, led by indefatigable McGill Professor and Gitksan First Nation member Cindy Blackstock, has been advocating for equitably funded Indigenous child welfare and health since 1999.
Blackstock and her team began by making legislators aware that Status children were falling through the cracks of the healthcare system. One tragic story is that of Jordan River Anderson, a little boy from Norway House Cree Nation who spent an extra two years in hospital, dying there before he was able to return home.
The delay was caused by a dispute between the federal government and the government of Manitoba about which of them should pay for his home care.
In 2007 Parliament passed Motion 296 promising to honour Jordan’s Principle. Jordan’s Principle requires governments to provide First Nations children with medical care first, then argue about which branch of government will pay the bill.
In 2020-21 the federal government would spend $5.82 million on Jordan’s Principle and the similar “Inuit Child First Initiative.” But back in 2007, it dragged its feet.
To keep costs down, Indigenous & Northern Affairs Canada (INAC) and Health Canada limited the principle to children with complex needs and multiple service providers. They also failed to publicize the principle.
So in 2007, First Nations Child and Family Caring Society filed a complaint against the federal government with the Canadian Human Rights Commission, arguing that the federal government discriminated against First Nations children and their families by failing to equitably deliver health care (per Jordan’s Principle) and family and child services to children on reserves. The Caring Society’s own federal funding was cut off 30 days later.
The federal government spent several years and over $3 million fighting the challenge, arguing that spending on reserves should not be compared to spending elsewhere, and that this spending is not a service pursuant to the Canada Human Rights Act.[1] In 2016 the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal ruled in favour of the Caring Society. It has since issued more than 6 non-compliance orders against the federal government.
We’ll now study the 2016 CHRT ruling in detail, as it provides a lot of interesting information on federal funding of child welfare on reserves.
The background to the ruling describes how, after World War II, when the social welfare system we know today was developing, provinces and territories were reluctant to extend assistance to reserves and other Indigenous communities, claiming that this was a federal responsibility. So in 1965 the federal government committed itself to providing the needed services to reserves.[2]
Over the next 25 years, concerns developed that the services being provided were minimal and not culturally appropriate. Many children were being removed from their communities for fostering or adoption. In response, the federal government developed the First Nation Child and F