New $ 40 Billion Ottawa Deal Provides More Compensation To Indigenous Children Harmed By ‘Discrimination’

OTTAWA – The Liberal government hopes to resolve long-standing concerns about what it admits is the discriminatory underfunding of social services for indigenous children with a $ 40 billion package to compensate affected children and improve programs over the next five years.

The deal in principle unveiled on Tuesday would see $ 20 billion in compensation for an estimated 115,000 First Nations children, as well as their parents and caregivers, taken from their homes and placed in foster care between April 1991 and March this year.

Tens of thousands more children who were denied an essential service or did not receive it due to discussions about what level of government should pay will also receive compensation from this pool of money, according to government officials, indigenous leaders and lawyers involved in the agreement. in principle, who spoke at a press conference on Tuesday.

In addition to compensation, the government is pledging “approximately” $ 20 billion over the next five years to improve services for children and families for First Nations.

The agreement in principle is the result of negotiations held in recent weeks after the government failed to secure a judicial review of an order from the Canadian Human Rights Court to compensate First Nations children and their caregivers $ 40,000 each. for the damages suffered through what he called racial discrimination. through underfunded services.

The new settlement, which has yet to be approved in Federal Court, would make the minimum compensation $ 40,000, while allowing people who suffered more serious harm to receive more money.

“Every day for decades, First Nations children … have been separated from their families and communities, and many were denied medical services and other support when they needed it, all at the hands of a federal welfare program. child who should have protected them. ” said Cindy Woodhouse, who participated in the talks and is Manitoba’s regional chief for the Assembly of First Nations (AFN).

He called the deal in principle a “landmark deal” to redress the “monumental mistakes” against indigenous children who are “massively” overrepresented in foster homes across the country.

2016 census data showed that indigenous children under the age of 14, who made up 7.7 percent of the child population, accounted for 52 percent of children in foster care. Some advocates see the situation as a disruptive echo of Canada’s residential school system that the 2015 Truth and Reconciliation Commission called “cultural genocide.”

Woodhouse said the settlement could result in compensation for 200,000 children and families.

Now that the agreement in principle has been reached, Federal Minister for Indigenous Services Patty Hajdu said the goal is to continue talks to reach a final agreement as soon as possible that includes details on compensation and future funding.

“Discrimination caused intergenerational damage and loss,” Hajdu said. “Those losses are not reversible, but I believe that healing is possible.”

Cindy Blackstock, executive director of the First Nations Child and Family Caring Society that has been involved in the human rights case since it began in 2007, said at her own press conference Tuesday that the agreement was still just “words on paper. “and that Your organization would lobby to ensure that it results in fair compensation for affected children and families.

That includes refraining from interviews about potential trauma and instead relying on metrics like a child’s age when they were taken out of their homes, as well as the number of homes they lived in while in foster care, Blackstock said.

“We owe it to the survivors, to the youth in care, and to the families who were told their child was not worth the money, to carry this through to completion,” he said.

The legal fight for compensation and improved funding dates back at least 15 years to 2007, when the AFN and the First Nations Child and Family Caring Society brought a case to the Canadian Court of Human Rights.

In 2016, the court found that the federal government racially discriminated against tens of thousands of indigenous children who were separated from their families and communities of origin to be placed in foster care, and who were denied or received delayed health care services that They are available to non-Indigenous Canadians.

The case continued for the next three years, during which the Liberal government increased funding for these programs and passed a law allowing indigenous nations to take responsibility for child welfare services in their own communities. At the same time, however, the human rights court ruled several times that Ottawa had not complied with its 2016 finding that the government engaged in “willful and reckless” discrimination. In September 2019, it ordered the federal government to pay $ 40,000 to affected children and their parents or grandparents, the maximum amount the court can order by law.

The Liberal government agreed that compensation was warranted, but nonetheless requested a judicial review of the court’s order to do so, a move that drew criticism from opposition parties and advocacy organizations. Government attorneys argued that the court settlement was too narrow because it only applied to affected children and families since 2006, and that the $ 40,000 flat rate of compensation did not take into account degrees of damage or allow claims to be negotiated. individual.

Meanwhile, liberals have entered into talks to resolve class action lawsuits seeking harm for children harmed by these same social services since 1991.

Then, last September, the Federal Court dismissed Ottawa’s request for judicial review of the human rights court’s decision, prompting the government to begin negotiations mediated by former Senator Murray Sinclair this fall. Those talks resulted in the $ 40 billion agreement in principle that was unveiled on Tuesday.

David Sterns, an attorney involved in pushing for a class action settlement, said the new settlement would allow hardest hit people to receive “significantly more” than $ 40,000 in court-ordered compensation. It would also include children affected since 1991, rather than the 2006 court limit.

Sterns said he hopes the deal will be approved by the Federal Court and that the money will begin to be distributed before the end of 2022.

Justice Minister David Lametti added that the federal government intends to drop its legal case to review the court’s decision when a final agreement is reached.

When asked if “public shame” played a role in the government’s decision to seek a settlement after fighting the human rights complaint for so many years, Indigenous Relations Minister Marc Miller said “there is a lot of shame to share, but it has been on the backs of indigenous children who have not had a fair chance. ”