7 Chapter 7 The Canadian Government and Indigenous Children in Foster Care

During the reading of The Lost Ones, it is made prevalent that there is a commonality and also issue with Canada’s foster care. Foster care and adoption are a big elements in the story because of the main character, Nora’s, past as well as her experience putting her daughter up for adoption. The difficulties of this system and being a “native” are further implied throughout the book as Nora gives us a better understanding of foster care. The  bigger issue with this is  due to Canada’s government’s reluctance of indigenous people which has led to an overrepresentation of them in the foster care system. As the character states in the novel, “If you think residential schools were the only way the Canadian Government gutted indigenous communities, you’d be wrong. They went at it all kinds of ways, just to see what stuck. In the fifties, sixties, and into the seventies, they had a scoop, by which I mean they scooped up kids from indigenous families and put them up for adoption” (Kamal, page 46.) This implies the problem with the Canadian government being reluctant towards these people and placing the indigenous children for adoption to remove them from communities. It shows their carelessness towards these children and more specifically for indigenous people.

It’s important to look into how and why this issue began. Nora refers to the fifties, sixties, and seventies which demonstrates how long this issue has been around. The unfortunate thing is that it started even longer before then and is still an issue today. The 2017 census statistic presented by the video Why Indigenous children are overrepresented in Canada’s foster care system  states that, “indigenous kids under the age of 4 made up 50% of the population of foster care while only being only 7% of Canada’s total population,” (Edwards). These children are now overrepresented this way due to decisions made in the past about a century ago when people were looking to address “the Indian problem.” Indigenous children were viewed as the solution to get rid of this so-called problem by removing them from their families and sending them to school.

As explained in the video, this was, “forcibly transferring children of the group to another group,” also known as genocide (Edwards). The students that were forcibly placed into these residential schools were not allowed to practice their culture or languages. They  also were abused and in unhealthy environments that were so bad many children died. This went on for many years, but around the 1930s in due to expenses and not solving the “Indian problem,” the schools became child welfare institutions and orphanages. In the sixties the Sixties Scoop as mentioned by Nora in The Lost Ones took place in which, “more than 20,000 first nation children were taken from their homes and placed in non-indigenous families,” (Edwards).

Today this is still an issue in foster care because the children who end up in this system often are with non-indigenous caregivers and therefore do not ever get to know their culture, language, or clan (Edwards).Therefore it is not that different from the residential schools in the past. The foster care issue however separated children from their actual families for years and this overrepresentation persists. The main reason is due to the government under funding child welfare, health, and social service on reserves (Edwards). Although there have been cases against the government for human rights, this issue still continues.

This issue has been constantly addressed by parents fighting to be reunited with their children, advocates seeking for the well-being of these children, and politicians seeking justice. It’s very unfortunate that many government officials however do not care about this issue and overall about indigenous children. While many hope that the country’s candidates for the next election might help with this injustice, that is not the case. Both candidates Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and the Conservative Party leader Andrew Scheer have stated how they plan to fight back on a ruling by the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal for indigenous children being compensated for the harm they have experienced due to Canada’s lack of and unequal funding for on-reserve children welfare system (Elliot).

Neither candidates have addressed what would happen to these children or shown any care over the matter. Trudeau has only recently stated an order for, “setting aside the Tribunal’s decision and dismissing the claim for monetary compensation,” and he is currently in a position where he can contribute to the continuation of this issue (Elliot). Furthermore, Scheer has denied the fact that these children and indigenous people have suffered from genocide despite the findings and evidence of the past. These are only a few examples of the ignorance towards this matter that will not help the current problem. Despite the official apologies from Canada about the past situations in residential schools, similar problems are still happening and going unaddressed. For example, indigenous agencies covering social services such as three in Ontario have been underfunded $400 million over five years. “That chronic underfunding has had a body count: 102 indigenous children have died between 2013 and 2017 in Ontario alone, 48 of whom died in the two years since the Tribunal first ordered the government to immediately stop discriminating against indigenous kids and fund them at the same rate as non-indigenous kids,” (Elliot). This is an unfortunate statistic, but only one example due to the government’s lack of care and funding.

The government has created a circumstance in which indigenous parents must choose to either care for their own children and lack services to do so or place children into social services where children have inadequate care. These people are set up to be treated this way. The government continues to claim they have not had time to solve this problem despite the many years that have gone by including 12 years since the Tribunal complaint. “Trudeau’s Liberal government in particular has had four years to stop fighting the First Nations Child and Family Caring Society and indigenous children, and work toward a solution,” however it has not been done and this issue can continue to grow (Elliot).

Most recently, it has been addressed that indigenous groups are to give notice of their intent to exercise their jurisdiction or seek to reach an agreement with the federal and provincial governments although they are not in the legislation (Malone). Indigenous groups are allowed to construct ways to bring changes to the issue and child-welfare laws. Cindy Blackstock who is the executive director of the First Nations Child and Family Caring Society of Canada is concerned if this will work due to her legislation being rejected by the federal government. Blackstock was a part of the Canadian Human Rights ruling of the government discriminating against Indigenous children and therefore should compensate them in their families, but this ruling has been a pause for too long. “A Federal Court justice in November granted the government’s request for a judicial review of the order, although he did not approve a second request that the deadline to submit a payment plan be dropped,” (Malone). Agencies are concerned because of this, as well as how the government’s model so provincially delegated agencies are given more money when more children are seized from their families which are not a part of the changes.

Although this issue has been around for years, it unfortunately continues. As mentioned, it has been addressed and is still now being addressed. Many are advocating for these children and indigenous families, but the main issue is the government’s lack or care and attention towards solving the problem. This shows their ignorance which has persisted over the years from solving the “Indian problem,” to now trying to ignore solutions of lack of funding and harm these children were put through. The overrepresentation of indigenous children in foster care in Canada is a continuous issue that needs to be solved.

Works Cited

Edwards, Kyle. “Why Indigenous Children Are Overrepresented in Canada’s Foster Care System.” Macleans.ca, https://www.macleans.ca/politics/why-indigenous-children-are-overrepresented-in-canadas-foster-care-system/.

Elliott, Alicia. “Opinion | Canada Doesn’t Care about Indigenous Children.” The Washington Post, WP Company, 9 Oct. 2019, https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2019/10/09/canada-doesnt-care-about-indigenous-children/.

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

Malone, Kelly G. “’Kids Will Fall through the Cracks:’ Advocates Critical of Child-Welfare Changes | CBC News.” CBCnews, CBC/Radio Canada, 7 Dec. 2019, https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/manitoba/child-welfare-legislation-changes-impact-first-nations-1.5388252.