Critique Bill C-92

Looking back at history, from the inception of Residential schools in 1831 to the era of the 60’s scoop and the ongoing child welfare system, the aim was clear: to erase Indigenous culture by assimilating children into mainstream society, often summarized as “kill the Indian in the child.”

This process ended up costing the federal government $3 billion dollars for the residential lawsuit, $875 million dollars for the 60’s scoop lawsuit, and most recently $23 billion dollars for the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal lawsuit – awarded because it was found that the federal government was purposely underfunding child welfare services for First Nations Children, Youth and Families.

The CHRT lawsuit is the largest compensation settlement in the history of Canada and lead to the Act respecting First Nations, Inuit and Metis Children, Youth and Families is passed.

This leads you to wonder: Was this act legislated because Canada really respects First Nations, Inuit, and Metis people’s inherent right to over see their own families services?

Or did it come into fruition because Canada recognizes that their history of trying to control this aspect of Indigenous peoples’ lives has ultimately cost them so much money they finally have decided to wash their hands child welfares services?

So now we have the Act – a blanket act that allows the 650 Indigenous communities recognized across so-called-Canada to implement their own child and family services.

The information provided by the federal government state that the act was “co-created” with First Nations, Inuit, and Metis partners however when you attempt to find out who the partners were there are vague the list that is given is (Government of Canada; Indigenous Services Canada, 2023):

• National and regional First Nations, Inuit, and Métis Nation organizations
• Parties to the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal complaint on First Nations child welfare and Jordan’s Principle
• Experts and First Nations, Inuit, and Métis child welfare advocates
• Women’s organizations
• First Nations, Inuit, and Métis youth with lived experience
• First Nations, Inuit and Métis Elders and grandmothers
• provinces and territories

The critique of this information provided is we know that the voices from 650 distinct communities were not all heard in the creation of this legislation. The vagueness of this information leads us to wonder: was the federal government seeking information from parties that they felt would suit their needs to develop the legislation from the government’s perspective rather than what truly will benefit the communities?

When we assessed the act and how it would relate to the Six Nations of the Grand River community, there were a few concerns that have never been addressed.

At first glance, An Act respecting First Nations, Inuit and Metis Children, Youth, and their Families, is everything the Indigenous peoples of Canada have been wanting for the Government of Canada to recognize their inherent rights. However, after looking critically at how this legislation would work for the Six Nations community, it is unsure if this would be the best way to go.

Six Nations of the Grand River has 28,662 registered members, with only 12,882 that live on the reserve land (SN Lands&Membership, 2024).  This means that more than half of the band members could potentially live anywhere (including the United States). For a smaller community that has most of their members on reserves or in nearby communities, this could potentially work. However, if a community as large as Six Nations has members that live in a different country how can we be sure that they will respect our law?

There are multiple concerns regarding this act, including the vagueness of “Best Interest of The Child”, lack of funding commitments, and then the simple fact that if a situation occurs that so-called-Canada does not agree, with their laws will supersede the Indigenous community’s law. So in all reality, is so-called-Canada actually recognizing Indigenous peoples inherent rights?

Currently, Six Nations of the Grand River has many different organizations that provide different services to the community. There are social services, health services, housing, justice department, correctional services, Six Nations Ontario Works, a family violence shelter, a youth lodge, employment services, crisis hub and a birthing centre (SN Website, June 2021).

An ideal alternative solution would be to come together as services to create a robust prevention framework. In this community most of the people that work in these areas state that they always seem to being dealing with crisis situations.

As community organizations we need to come together with one another and create a system that is efficient and will be able to address community members’ situations before they are in crisis.

It is understood that many of our families become involved in the child welfare system due to the colonial systems that have been imposed on Indigenous peoples. If we can create a system that is able to address core issues of poverty, mental health, addictions, and the breakdown of family units, this would help prevent family involvement with child welfare.