Our Children, Our Future, Our Responsibility

It’s a staggering statistic: there are more First Nations children in state care today than at the height of the residential schools system. Three times as many, to be exact, or approximately 27,000 children. It is an alarming and damning marker of a system that is failing First Nations children.

The First Nations Child and Family Services (CFS) program, created and administered by the federal Department of Indian Affairs, was supposed to help reverse this trend. But Canada's Auditor General Sheila Fraser recently reported that 8,300 First Nations children are in care specifically as a result of this program.

The Auditor General’s report on this situation is required reading for anyone interested in the real problems and real solutions facing First Nations and Canada. While it focuses on child welfare, it identifies the fundamental flaw at the core of the entire broken system.

The Auditor General found that the fundamental problem with the First Nations CFS program is a complete lack of accountability by the Department that administers it.

There is no connection between the stated goals of the program – at its most basic, to keep children safe - and the resources provided to achieve those goals. As a result, First Nations child care agencies receive 22% less funding than provincial agencies.

There is no connection between areas of greatest need and where the money is actually spent. Resources are allocated based on a funding formula that is two decades old and has not been reviewed for more than ten years.

And there is no connection between reporting requirements and results. The reports the government asks for do not include any useful information about which initiatives are actually working and which are failing.

The Auditor General says: “In practice, the needs of children in care who are served by First Nations agencies vary widely. The outdated funding formula means that some children and families are not getting the services they need.”

The alarming number of First Nations children placed in care is a testament to this tragic failure. The main reason our children are apprehended is “neglect”, but this is not an indictment of First Nations parents. It is the poverty in too many of our communities that places our children at risk: overcrowded homes, crumbling schools, dangerous drinking water and the myriad manifestations of unfairness and inequality.

National Chief Phil Fontaine told media: “This is a national crisis; we need a Canada-wide solution. ... the AFN is calling for these solutions to be developed with real First Nations involvement and a timetable that reflects the crisis nature of these issues.”

It is an intolerable situation. What is truly intolerable is that this problem has metastasized across all areas of the federal government’s policies and programs for First Nations. Resources are sprinkled about with little sense of where they are needed and with no attempt to assess if initiatives are actually working to improve peoples’ lives.

The government has known about these problems for a long time, and the AFN proposed solutions in the 2005 Wen:de report and the 2006 Leadership Action Plan on First Nations Child Welfare. When the government refused to work with the Assembly, the AFN was forced to file a formal complaint with the Canadian Human Rights Commission in 2007. The Auditor General’s report offers a strong argument supporting the AFN complaint. Since filing this complaint, the Human Rights Commission has called twice for mediation. Both times the AFN has accepted the recommendation but INAC officials have refused. In light of the Auditor General’s report, the National Chief has sent a letter to Indian Affairs Minister Chuck Strahl and Health Minister Tony Clement again asking for a meeting.

The problems with the generally dysfunctional system have been flagged by many Auditors General as well as landmark studies like the 1996 final report of the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples.

The reasons for action are well-documented, and it only makes sense to act now. The World Health Organization states that every dollar invested in prevention measures saves five to seven dollars in costs of future services. The Canadian Centre for the Study of Living Standards reports that investments in education for First Nations students would add an additional $62 billion to the economy over the next ten years.

And yet First Nations students – the fastest growing segment of the population – receive $2,000 less for education than other Canadians students. The government remains inert and deaf to our calls for action.

This is why the AFN is calling for a second National Day of Action on May 29th.

We are calling for immediate investments to stabilize the crisis conditions that kill people, kill hope and kill opportunity. This is simply a call for fiscal fairness. We are calling for forward-looking investments in our children and our future: a stimulus package to educate and train our youth and spark our economies through partnerships and resource revenue-sharing.

And, of course, we must look beyond spending and create a new and better system that provides First Nations with the ability to make the decisions that affect their lives, to be responsible for the consequences of those decisions and to ensure First Nations governments are accountable to their people first.

Ultimately, First Nations can strengthen their people, their communities and their economies and work towards real self-sufficiency and real self-determination.

This is what the National Day of Action is about: our children, our future and our responsibility to one another as citizens of this land.

If we truly believe in fairness and justice we should all work together to ensure First Nations children are safe, healthy and able to pursue every opportunity this country provides.



Addendum for Facebook-ers:
There's now a National Day of Action Facebook group. Join here. Of course, you've gotta be a member of Facebook to join. Sign-in and sign-up - join the fun!