Whitehorse Daily Star

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Photo by Vince Fedoroff

SETTING URGENT PRIORITIES – Aboriginal leaders and Premier Darrell Pasloski (far right) are seen at a news conference after their meeting Wednesdayin Whitehorse. From left to right are Clément Cartier, president, Métis Council; Dawn Lavell-Harvard, Native Women’s Association of Canada; Nathan Obel,Inuit Tapiit Kanatami; Dwight Dorey, National Chief Indigenous Peoples’ Assembly of Canada; Perry Belgrade, National Chief, Assembly of First Nations;and the premier.

Leaders to target child welfare system reform

The country’s premiers and leaders of the National Aboriginal Organizations agreed Wednesday to make child welfare the top priority of the new annual forum that replaces the Aboriginal Affairs Working Group.

By Sidney Cohen on July 21, 2016

The country’s premiers and leaders of the National Aboriginal Organizations agreed Wednesday to make child welfare the top priority of the new annual forum that replaces the Aboriginal Affairs Working Group.

Indigenous children are overrepresented in child welfare systems across Canada, and child welfare reforms comprise the first five of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s 94 Calls to Action.

“There was consensus to start focusing on overhauling the child-welfare system, not only on-reserve but off reserve as well,” Assembly of First Nations National Chief Perry Bellegarde said Wednesday in Whitehorse.

The premiers and heads of the Assembly of First Nations, Indigenous Peoples’ Assembly of Canada, Inuit Tapiit Kanatami, Métis National Council, and Native Women’s Association of Canada gathered at the Coast High Country Inn for the first of three days of Council of the Federation (COF) meetings.

The group reaffirmed that the premiers who make up COF will continue the tradition of meeting with the National Aboriginal Organizations as part of their annual COF summit.

In June, deputy premier Elaine Taylor represented the Yukon at the first Federal Provincial and Territorial Indigenous Forum. That was set up for the express purpose of closing socio-economic gaps between indigenous and non-indigenous peoples.

On Wednesday, the premiers and National Aboriginal Organizations confirmed that child welfare issues will top the agenda at future meetings.

“We’re focusing on children,” Dawn Lavell-Harvard, president of the Native Women’s Association of Canada, said about future Federal Provincial and Territorial Indigenous Forums.

“But it’s not just about the child welfare system, it’s about providing better opportunities for indigenous children right from conception, so that they don’t end up as part of the child welfare system.”

The TRC called the “grossly disproportionate” number of indigenous children in care “a crisis.”

The commission called on governments to reduce the number of kids in care, support efforts to keep families together, and draft annual reports on the number of indigenous children in care compared with non-indigenous children.

A 2011 Statistics Canada survey found that 48 per cent of the children in foster care are indigenous.

Indigenous peoples account for just over four per cent of the Canadian population. Bellegarde said the number of indigenous kids in care today is much higher, putting it at around 40,000.

“That’s not acceptable,” he said.

In the Yukon, more than two thirds of all children in foster care are indigenous, despite indigenous children making up only 33 per cent of the of the total child population in the territory, says a 2015 report to Canada’s premiers on indigenous children in care.

“Aboriginal children are overrepresented in the child welfare system, no question,” Annette King, the Yukon’s child and youth advocate, said in a June interview with the Star.

The traumas experienced in residential schools have affected generations of families in the Yukon, she said.

This contributes to the disproportionate number of indigenous children in the territory’s child welfare system.

King said that immersing children in their culture is key to breaking the cycle of families’ involvement with the child protection unit.

“It’s clear that healing from trauma, you need to get grounded in culture and language, and that was what was removed and ripped away from these kids as young people,” King said of residential school survivors and their descendants.

“The very thing that they need to help them heal is the thing that they don’t have.”

Yukon First Nations governments were involved in developing today’s child welfare legislation.

Under the Yukon’s 2010 Child and Family Services Act, the First Nation must be involved in the decision-making process for First Nations children brought into the child welfare system.

The Yukon signed a special memorandum of agreement with the Kwanlin Dün First Nation (KDFN) government that outlines ways to address systemic issues that result in KDFN children and families becoming involved with the child welfare system.

It also laid out processes to fully involve KDFN in the evaluation of child welfare cases and the delivery of child and family services.

According to the 2015 document, Aboriginal Children in Care: Report to Canada’s Premiers, there were 30 per cent fewer indigenous children in care in the Yukon in 2013-14 than in 2007-08.

At the time of the report, the government was looking at signing similar child welfare agreements with other First Nations in the territory.

In addition to child welfare, the first day of COF 2016 saw the premiers express their support for a national inquiry into missing and murdered indigenous women and girls.

Speaking on behalf of the provinces and territories, Premier Darrell Pasloski said everyone at the table agreed there is no need to wait for a launch date to work on preventing violence against indigenous women and girls.

Bellegarde turned up the volume on a call for immediate action on missing and murdered indigenous women and girls.

“Governments don’t have to wait for the outcome of the inquiry once it’s announced,” he said.

“Governments can make investments to end violence amongst our people, amongst indigenous women and girls, and to deal with investments in housing, and education, and training, and daycare, and shelter, and detox centres and wellness centres.”

Unique to Wednesday’s meeting with the National Aboriginal Organizations was a panel discussion on indigenous economic development initiatives.

The panel included Chief Steve Smith of the Champagne and Aishihik First Nations; Ellis Ross, chair of the Haisla Nation Chief Councillor and Aboriginal Business Investment Council; Eira Thomas, Kaminak Gold Corp.’s president and CEO; and Gary Merasty, Des Nedhe Development’s president and COO.

“Yukon First Nations play a significant role in Yukon’s political and economic landscape,” Smith said in a statement following the panel presentation.

“We welcome the opportunity to show Canada how our culture and way of life helps us build a stronger economy.”

See more premiers’ conference coverage.

Comments (1)

Up 1 Down 1

Jessica on Jul 22, 2016 at 7:53 am

Great coverage but ITK was spelled incorrectly: Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami. Not Tapiit.

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