12 Chapter 12 Canada’s Foster Care System Provides Money to the Wrong Individuals

The United States and Canada have very similar economies and therefore policies that work in one country tend to fair well in the other. According to an article written by the Nation Bureau of Economic Research, the small differences between the two countries provide for a unique opportunity for experimental research and the impact differences in policy have on the individual countries. Specifically, this essay will focus on how the differences in social safety net policy have led to a “backwards” foster care system in Canada. Empirical evidence to support this ideology will be coupled with evidence found in the fictional novel The Lost Ones, where Nora Watts epitomizes the flawed foster care system. The primary argument is the following: the social safety net policies in Canada promote a foster care system that strips children from low-income parents and places them in an alternative situation with government financial support. In the novel The Lost Ones, Nora’s story reflects the issues with the current foster care system and provides readers with a practical example of how these polices negatively affect citizens, ultimately altering the reader’s emotions towards this situation and bringing it  to the attention of the public. The issue with this ideology is that the government should look to provide financial assistance to the low-income families instead of providing support post displacement.

The largest difference between Canadian and US foster care policy is in relation to “federal oversight,” (Ziminski). “In Canada there is no federal oversight of child welfare… it’s all at the provincial level,” (Ziminski). This has led to a large disconnect between federal policy and provincial guidelines for supporting the foster care system. Additionally, since American foster care is operated at a national level, the data collection and analysis is more streamlined and more appropriate to support children across the country. Nationwide data collection and analysis is difficult in Canada due to the fact that “each province and territory has its own child protection legislation and a government agency responsible for child welfare,” (Ziminski). Another area of disconnect between the federal government and the provinces of Canada is in relation to funding of the foster care system. Canada as a whole has fairly competent family benefits and social welfare assistance; however, provinces are in charge of funding their own implementations of improvements to the foster care system. This financial constraint heavily impacts the amount of change that can occur to better support low-income households.

Evidence to support the local impact is found in The Star article written by Cheirse Seucharan, which was a required reading for this course. This article focusses on the impact that Canadian social safety net policy has in B.C. The article starts off with an interesting perspective: “Vancouver- When it comes to child welfare, social work experts and parents in British Columbia say we’re investing in the wrong end of the system- pouring money into foster care instead of offering adequate support to vulnerable families, many of whom are Indigenous,” (Seucharan). This is exactly the disconnect that the previous article points out and is continued throughout this article. The federal government in Canada has policy in play to support the family who receives the child instead of supporting the low-income blood family of the adopted child. In a survey taken for the sake of this article, roughly 98% of the parents who had to give up their children for adoption did not receive adequate financial assistance, the only exception being a family that was “well-off.”

So far, it is apparent that the difference in child welfare policy between the US and Canada is significant and heavily impacting the foster care system in Canada. The analysis conducted points to the lack of federal oversight as the primary reason causing a negative impact of the citizen’s of Canada. This claim is backed by the findings in B.C. where people physically feel the “backwards” support in the foster care system. This empirical evidence can be further explored in the novel The Lost Ones. The next claim will be that Nora Watts is the epitome of the flaw in the foster care system and her story speaks to the nature of a large amount of citizen’s within Canada.

Nora Watts, the primary character in The Lost Ones, gives up her child for adoption due to the lack of assistance she has to raise her child in proper conditions. As a citizen of Canada in a low-income situation, Nora lacks the financial capacity to raise her child and is somewhat forced to put her child up for adoption. The reader also learns about her background with the foster system and how she “didn’t… [grow] up in a home with smiling photos,” giving the impression that she would not want to put her child up for adoption (Kamal 55). The “backwards” nature of the Canadian social safety net policy for the foster care system subjects Nora to an awful situation; one, that given the financial support, she would be able to ideally overcome. However, the Canadian government does not support the low-income family that the child derives from but instead supports the family that adopts this child. In this fictional novel, the family that adopts her child is much better off than her shown through Nora’s living conditions, clothing, and struggle to financially support herself. The Canadian government should implement a tool to help correct this scenario, potentially some sort of screening tool.

After conducting thorough research on the error-ridden foster care system in Canada, I have devolved a new understanding for Nora’s situation in The Lost Ones. The reader learns quickly that Nora was a victim of sexual abuse, an Indigenous citizen, and financially unstable. The unfortunate circumstances of her pregnancy along side her horrific childhood in the foster care system creates a feeling of sympathy for the reader. The Canadian government has failed this Indigenous citizen twice in her lifetime and ultimately puts the “nail in the coffin” by not providing her with adequate financial support across two social injustices. As I have analyzed through the course of this pressbook, the Canadian government has issues with this social safety net policy and reading about a fictional example of how these policies affect people creates a feeling of sadness and sympathy, which I did not possess while initially reading this novel. It remains our job of citizens with a more practical foster care system to identify such injustices and bring them to light in the public.

In conclusion, the Canadian government should better assist low income families with child support to eliminate the disconnect between the federal and provincial legislation around the foster care system. One such tool that could be implemented would be a screening tool to give the local government a better understanding of their demographic and assist families in need prior to putting their children up for adoption. That being said, this solution may take time or be overly costly to the nation and therefore, Canada should rely move heavily on some of the federal legislation already in existence. For example, the “Canada Child Tax Benefit” or the “Universal Child Care Benefit” regulations could be updated to better assist low income households. These federal initiatives most likely lack proper implementation in local governments and do not reach the families that need it the most, shown through the analysis of this paper. By placing more of an emphasis on this portion os social safety net policy, citizen’s quality of life will improve significantly, and children will not be removed from households from which they should not be removed. By providing funding to the receivers of the children up for adoption, the Canadian federal government is incentivizing the wrong end of the foster care system; providing money to the wrong individuals.

Work Cited:

Kamal, Sheena. The Lost Ones. William Morrow, an Imprint of HarperCollins Publishers, 2018.

Oreopoulos, Philip, and David Card. “Public Policies in Canada and the United States.” Public Policies in Canada and the United States, www.nber.org/PublicPolicies/publicpolicies.html.

Seucharan, Cherise, et al. “B.C.’s Focus on Foster Care Neglects Need to Support Struggling Families, Experts Say.” Thestar.com, 13 June 2019, www.thestar.com/vancouver/2019/06/13/bcs-focus-on-foster-care-neglects-need-to-support-struggling-families-experts-say.html.

Social Development Canada. “Government of Canada.” Canada.ca, Government of Canada, 26 Nov. 2019, www.canada.ca/en/employment-social-development.html (Links to an external site.).

Ziminski, Devon, et al. “Child Welfare in Canada: More Federal Assistance, Less Oversight Compared to U.S.” The Chronicle of Social Change, 6 July 2016, chronicleofsocialchange.org/news-2/a-tale-of-two-systems-minimal-oversight-of-child-welfare-in-canada-compared-to-u-s/19433.