Nuanced. - 279. Dr. Cindy Blackstock: Is Canada Still Discriminating Against First Nations Children?

Episode Date: September 30, 2026

First Nations child-welfare advocate Dr. Cindy Blackstock joins to explain Jordan’s Principle, federal discrimination, residential schools, government surveillance and accountable reform with host Chief Aaron Pete.Send us Fan MailSupport the shownuancedmedia.ca

Dr. Blackstock, I'm wondering if you can ground us in... What exactly is Jordan's principle? Because he was First Nations, we have the feds and provinces arguing. Canada says that more than 10 million product services and supports were approved between 2016 and September 2025. And it has renewed Jordan's principle with another $1.55 billion through March 27. A reasonable Canadian might ask, how can a program of that scale be discriminatory? discriminatory because what the federal government is doing is they are announcing the money, but they are not necessarily meeting the needs of the children.

First Nations children represented 42.5% of foster children living in private households in 2021 census. People sometimes call contemporary child welfare the new residential school system. Is that comparison factually sound? Well, I think that there are a lot of similarities. The similarities are that children are removed and placed in other homes. What they all dispute is whether or not there are 215 confirmed graves in the Camloops' apple orchard outside of the building. And I'm wondering, where do you draw that line? Dr. Cindy Blackstock, thank you so much for joining us today.

Would you mind briefly introducing yourself for first. folks who might not be acquainted. Sure. I'm delighted to be here, by the way. And yeah, I'm from the Gittemax First Nation up in northern British Columbia. And I grew up on Forest Ranger stations and lookout towers, were those old enough to remember those all over Northern B.C. My work originally was in British Columbia. I was doing child welfare work for the province for about 10 years and then with the Squamish Nation, and then later with a provincial organization that helped train social workers to work with First Nations maintaining unique peoples in BC, and did policy work. And that happened until about 2000 when I was asked to work with colleagues across the country

to create something called the First Nations Child and Family Caring Society. And what we do is we really focus on ensuring that First Nations kids have, substantively equal access to health, education, and social supports so that they, you know, have a chance to thrive. Dr. Blackstock, I'm wondering if you can ground us in the circumstances facing indigenous children. There are many who listen to this program who have heard about the politics of reconciliation. Some of the issues we're running through in regards to DRIPA and the Cowichin decision. and as you might imagine, some of the reconciliation project has become somewhat controversial. But I think what should never become controversial is the well-being of children.

No matter who they are, no matter where they come from, that should always be a focus that is apolitical and important to all of us. Can you just help us understand from your perspective, the work you've been doing and what you see on the ground in many First Nation communities? Well, what a lot of people don't know is that the federal government actually funds, public services on reserve and in the Yukon. And they do so to a far lesser level than every other child gets. And that's been going on since Confederation. So if your First Nations child on reserve or in the Yukon, you're getting all the trauma from residential schools piled on top of you.

And you're getting less opportunities to deal with it, even with basics like water, lack of funding for a proper school. And so those are the types of, that's the type of unfairness that we have been working to address. And we worked originally with the federal government to document it, come up with solutions that were economically based and evidence based. We did all that work for a decade and the federal government never acted. And kids were really being hurt. Like the rates of over representation grew 10 times while we were sitting at that table. So it came to a point where we had to go to the chiefs across Canada and get authority to file a

human rights case against Canada. And that case took nine years to get to a decision in 2016, but it found that the government was racially discriminating against kids. And since then, we've had to get north of 30 orders to try to get the federal government to implement it and stop that behavior. Wow. And so when you're seeing these children, like I think as a First Nations chief, what I often see is people whose parents are really struggling with their own addictions and with their own history. I think one of the things that doesn't get talked about as much about Indian residential schools is that they were not taught how to be good parents in those schools. And so a lot of cultural teachings, a lot of lessons about just how to be a good parent,

how to set a good example, how to stay sober, teaching your kids' life lessons along the way. a lot of that just isn't instilled because the parents are very much recovering from their own experiences. And so you have young people, little children, who don't have a lot of people to look up to and admire and go, okay, my uncle is a dentist and my dad's a doctor and my cousin's a lawyer. Like, you don't have that same. I can just go ask any of these people. And that's often one of the concerns I've always had about the reserve system specifically is all of your neighbors are in the same boat as you. and where in the community I live in,

my neighbor is a plumber and the other person's an electrician and the other person's a lawyer. And so I could go down the block and ask my friends and neighbors, hey, could you tell my kid how you got into that? Could you take them for lunch? And we don't have that.

And it's even worse if you're in the north or if you're in a remote community. And so you have a lack of potentially positive influences. But then on top of that, you have a lack of funding. And then on top of that, in order to leave your community, you kind of have culture shock because if you're coming from Hyda Nation all the way to Vancouver,

it's a very different culture, it's a different pace, there's a different sense of community. And so there are a lot of things that are intangible that prevent people and children from being able to ever reach their full potential. And that really concerns me. And I wonder how you've seen that. Yeah, I think that that's really true. And also, I don't want to leave out our non-Indigenous colleagues who often, despite First Nations children getting less

and having all the challenges you talk about, they're often judged by caring Canadians that don't know any better as if they get more. And because they don't understand these inequalities. Many people haven't even opened the Indian Act. Like I always say to the general public, just Google the Indian Act. Look at the table of contents

and see how your family would thrive if that was applied to you. Like try to run a business under the Indian Act. What if your will was overridden by the Minister of Indigenous Affairs? What if it was the Minister of Indigenous Affairs that decided if your job was registered Indian or a non-registered Indian? And that's one of the first things you get as a baby present. That's the reality of that Indian Act system. And one of the things I'd always say to folks is, yeah, you turn on the TV or you walk into a community and you're going to see some amazing great things.

that First Nations, Métis and Inuit people are doing, but you're also going to see the struggles. But don't get hopeless because we've done the work. We have the solutions. All we need is your support to be able to push those across the finish line and make sure that governments actually properly implement them, including getting rid of the Indian Act. I'm wondering what some of our listeners have said in the comments section previously is there's a felt sense that, like, While it is true that perhaps per capita, children experience less support, broadly, the amount of investments we've seen both provincially in British Columbia, but in many provinces and federally, has been historic spending by the federal government and provincial governments on indigenous people and on the goal of reconciliation. And I'm just wondering, since 2021, since the unmarked grave story came out, there's a feeling that a lot has been done and a lot has been spent. and I'm wondering how you take that criticism, particularly when it comes to this file.

Well, I would say that that's a sign of how unequally these children have been treated over the years, is that we, as a country, there was a use of racial discrimination as fiscal policy. And so why you're seeing such vast amounts of money being invested is because it's to bring those kids up to at least the same, standard of everybody else, and give them a little bit more help so that they can get on the right footing. You know what? The best investment any government can make is in kits.

If you give them good quality, culturally appropriate programs in the younger, then they're not going to have to recover from their childhoods as adults. And not that, you're not going to have to pay class action lawyers, a big huge settlement for all the harms for these children who have been victimized when that could have been prevented. So all day long, all the research shows you, the very best investment is in kids. So when we're looking at how the big numbers

that Canada often talks about or provinces talk about, the next question is, how are they structuring that money to make sure it hits on the ground? And that's often where governments fall short, right? There's way too much money going to places that government thinks are priority,

instead of to actually address the real needs of kids and families on the ground. And we've shown how that can make a difference through Jordan's principle, for example. I'm interested in how you reflect on the years of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. And what was the gap between your understanding and the federal governments? Because I think it's fair to say that Justin Trudeau's legacy, if whatever it ends up being, a part of that story will be his commitment to reconciliation. and to trying to take action to support indigenous people. And so what was the gap between that resulted in this case going to the human rights?

I think, like, I was actually kind of surprised because in many ways this was a gift to the prime minister this case. Why I say that is that in December 2015, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission released its final report. And if you look at the very top call to action, it's child welfare. If you look at number three, it's Jordan's principle, the two things that are central to this case. And the tribunal's decision just follows a month later. And it says to the government, you're discriminating against these kids. But that was also a gift of an opportunity to implement fully those reconciliation visions. And we wanted to be financially responsible on the first nation side.

We're the ones that reached out to Kevin Page, the former parliamentary budget officer, and his incredible team like Dr. Halana Gaspard to actually cost out what it would be to actually end the discrimination. And how do we structure that money and then measure outcomes for kids to make sure that it's actually improving their lives? We did all of that work,

but the government just didn't take it on board. They went back, did some kind of back of the napkin kind of thing, and it's a piecemeal solution that was an evidence-based, that wasn't economically costed out from what we can see. And that's why they've had 35 legal orders against them. Why do you think they did that? I don't know. When I look back, I've been doing this now for about 30 years

watching the federal government and really trying to get them to stop the discrimination. What I see is a recurring pattern where they know that they're harming the children. And we know this from their own documents. it's not speculation. They have a solution to fix it, and they choose not to do it. And I think that that's what Canadians really need to hone in on, is forcing the government to actually do the right thing, to do better when they know better.

And we're not alone in saying this, like the Auditor General of Canada, repeated Auditor Generals have said this, parliamentary budget officers have said this, even former ministers have said this. The problem has been to get the government as a machine to actually act on the solutions that are evidence-based that First Nations are putting forward for kids.

Can I ask, like, do you think they read your report and go, we don't want to, we don't actually want to fix it? Like, what is where they're going and going, no, no, no, no, no, I want to go do, like, I'm just trying to figure out who's looking at your report and then going, we'll do the opposite or we'll do something that isn't evidence. Like I can't imagine somebody wants to say that out loud and say, we don't want to be evidence-based and we want to spend a lot of money. No, but the crazy thing is, and I'm really open to debate on issues, right?

Let's have a debate and then let's have the best idea rise to the top for kids. I've always said to the federal government. If you have a better evidence-based solution, I want to see it, because we should adopt it. if it's better. But we don't have that type of dialogue with the federal government. It feels like they really want to retain that control. They want to be the ones that come up with a solution. And even when we point to why it's not going to work,

why it's going to cost Canadians more, and really importantly, why it's unnecessarily going to continue to cost First Nations children in their lives and their childhoods, the Canadian government just doesn't like to be told what to do. But that's exactly what needs to happen. And that's been the only way we made progress is when the courts have told the federal government, ordered the federal government to take action. Even there, they sometimes turn their heads away from the courts and do whatever they want to do

anyway. That's kind of where we are right now. But at least we can go back to the courts. And we may have to consider things like contempt charges. Wow. What has changed in substance under Prime Minister Mark Carney? Hmm. Well, there is at least an economic focus by the federal government, which I would welcome. What I don't see is a lot of attention to the expense side of the federal government's balance sheet. What I'm saying there is we have First Nations driven and design solution, informed by over 100 submissions by First Nations to permanently and Canada's

discrimination and child welfare. It's called loving justice. It benefits from all that economic, public policy stuff, all the experts on children, families, everybody. That is sitting right there as a solution for the prime minister to activate. And instead, the federal government is choosing its own plan that was informed only by itself. They have no experts in child and family services. the public finance costing is very selective if it exists at all. And it's going to reproduce the discrimination that's already cost the federal government $23.4 billion in class action money alone. Like you think cutting a check for $23.4 billion would be, oh, I'm not going to do that again. I'm not going to just, you know, let my officials go and write up some kind of back of the napkin solution for First Nations kids.

But no, that's exactly what they're doing. And I'd like to see the Prime Minister really ensure that there is good, economically, costed out, and effective measures being taken by the Department of Indigenous Services, because I'm just not seeing that. For Canadians who recognize the name but not the policy, what exactly is Jordan's principle? What happened to Jordan River Anderson? And what does a failure of the principle look like for a child's life today? It's a sacred law. And, you know, whenever we name something by a child, then we have to ask more of ourselves. And it's also a legal right.

So what happened to Little Jordan is while we were beavering away writing some of these reports with Canada, showing how the federal government not only giving less to First Nations children, who are in need. But also buck passing with other parts of the federal government and also with provinces, how that was actually creating a real hardship for Little Jordan. He was in the hospital for two years. His pediatrician said, great, you know, he's making progress. He can go home at roughly the age of two.

But he needed some in-home supports. And if he was non-Indigenous, he would have gotten no. supports and gone home at a far cheaper rate for the average taxpayer, by the way, keeping a child in hospital is not inexpensive. But instead of just doing the right thing, the federal government argued about every little thing that that little child needed. He ended up spending Aaron over two and a half years in that hospital just because he was a First Nations child.

And because he was First Nations, we had the feds and provinces arguing over who should pay. until his sister Jarlene Sullivan said he eventually died of a broken heart. He went into a coma and died at the age of five, never having left that hospital. And I went to his memorial in his community of Norway House cre nation. And if anyone's ever had the privilege of flying from Winnipeg over to Norway House, you see all these beautiful lakes out the window, right? And I was looking at the lakes on my way to the memorial, and I just tears came to my eyes. I thought, that little boy never saw this, right?

Just because of who he was. So in his memory, the family, his father, Ernest Anderson, and the entire family, created Jordan's principal, which is very simple. It says, First Nations children should have substantively equal access to the health, education, and social supports that they need when they need them. And the safeguard is it's professionals who are going to save who they need them. It's not a free-for-all with anybody saying, I want this, I want this. It's actually, you know, you have a social worker working with the family, a teacher, a doctor, a nurse practitioner, whatever, or an elder or knowledgekeeper who says this child means this cultural intervention.

And the federal government, by law now, thanks to the tribunal rulings, has to honor that. But it has not been honoring it recently. It has been rolling back Jordan's principle. And in doing so, brings a great indignity to Jordan and a great sadness to many of us who loved him. May I ask, I served as a native court worker for about five years and worked with many First Nations people and Métis and Inuit through the criminal justice. system. But one of my common reflections was that I believe that we

should just have systems built for the most vulnerable 10%. It shouldn't be just the native court worker program for indigenous people. We could create a court worker program to serve anybody who's ineligible for services and programs and who's behind

the April. Right now, it's indigenous people in many of these files, criminal justice, education, addictions, mental health, housing, homelessness, poverty. But my dream, my aspiration, my hope is that that one day isn't the case. And across all of these files, we're not in the bottom 10%. We're not struggling with all of these issues the same way. But whoever group category individual is in that most vulnerable 10% should receive those supports.

Is there a way from your perspective to expand Jordan's principle so that it makes sure that all children, across Canada deserve those supports rather than just indigenous people over the long term. Right. Well, we'd have to talk to the family about that, but I can't tell you that I've had some discussions with them, and they really, they love all children. They want to see all children benefit by that. I think it would be a great thing to see all children who are caught in these types of situations to have the benefit of Jordan's principle. It's been recognized as a good practice internationally, Jordan's principle. You know, and again, I come back to it

and it did make sense economically. Because for every dollar you spend on a child, you're going to say 15 down the stream to government. If you spend a dollar on someone my age, that's not going to be the same thing, right? You're not going to get that payoff. So it makes sense economically.

It definitely makes sense morally, right? I would challenge the last piece because I think elders like yourself, people who are knowledge keepers like yourself, we underestimate their importance and passing on their wisdom and expertise to the next generation. And one of my biggest critiques of the West generally is during COVID, they did not take care of their elders. They did not create a space where that knowledge transfer was taking place. And it's one of the biggest errors, I think, that the West makes is you just ship people

off to seniors' homes and you visit them once a year. year and you miss out on so much lived experience, so much knowledge about how to face great depressions, global anxiety, stress. Like, all of those things are so important. And I think we miss out sometimes and we forget how important it is to speak to people who have a lived experience over a vast number of years because that helps us look at the challenges we're facing as less terrifying than they are and help give us knowledge on how to approach those. Yeah. Like I mean, I've seen so many wonderful things around the world. and across Canada the First Nations have done.

And in Australia, for example, there is something called the Victoria Aboriginal Child Care Agency, Baca, headed by the amazing Muriel Van Blatt. And what she did is she started to notice that the children that were coming to the attention of her agency for child welfare, they weren't able to connect with elders because the elders were being moved out of their communities because there's no age care. So she got into the age care business and does support for elders in their house so that they can be there for the grandchildren and other people's children and as well as created in an age care facility that allows for children to stay, right? These are practical solutions and I just want to put a shout out to many First Nations who actually are out there helping their neighbors who are in those vulnerable situations. I can tell you I go across the country

and there are so many First Nations programs that are very holistic and many people from different cultures who also share that worldview find much more kinship and comfort in receiving services there and, you know, First Nations, if there's any way they can pull it off,

they will be there for their neighbors. So Canada says that more than 10 million product services and supports were approved. between 2016 and September 2025, and it has renewed Jordan's principle with another $1.55 billion through March 2027. A reasonable Canadian might ask, how can a program of that scale be discriminatory? Well, it's been, it's discriminatory because what the federal government is doing is they are announcing the money, but they are not necessarily meeting the needs of the children.

So what we've seen is, for example, they announced a bulletin last February where they said for all children off reserves. And I just want to say for folks watching, most First Nations children live off reserve. So they said all those children off reserve are actually not eligible for a whole laundry list of health under Jordan's principle unless substantive equality applies. And then behind the scenes, they actually ripped up the definition of substantive equality and had no definition. That's the kind of game playing we're seeing. And it's a real injustice to kids, right? Because Jordan's principal has saved kids going into child welfare care. It has been life-changing for kids.

Let me just give you two examples. Real-life examples. When Canada was implementing Jordan's principle properly, our office got a phone call from a young guy, and he was so excited because he's on his way to university. But he told us that he was going to drop out of high school because he just didn't think he could cut it. Until through Jordan's principal, he had a learning assessment

and just realized he learned in a different way. And that was a total turning point, and the kid just did really well in high school, and it's now off to university. That's what happens when they do it well. when they breach the legal orders, the second story happens. We got a family received a letter from the government saying that they have finally, after a year and a half, it should have happened within 12 hours, but in a year and a half later, they approved the mental health services that that young man's circle of care said he needed urgently. But sadly, it came six months too late.

that young person passed away, died from suicide. That's when they breached the orders. Wow. So, like, it really is life or death. We need to look through the speaking points and PR points of the government and look at what they're really doing for kids. The Human Rights Tribunal said requests such as modeling headshots and gaming consoles were not what Jordan's principal originally envisioned and found that some

supposedly urgent files appeared misclassified. What should Jordan's principal not pay for? Okay. So on that, we were puzzled by that because that always came from the federal government, and we said, well, then don't approve those things. It's not a carte blanche that the federal government has to approve every request that comes forward. There are clear criteria. Like, you need to have a professional letter behind that. That's a safeguard, right? That there needs to be, it needs to be reasonably linked to a child's needs, not just a child's wants, right? Like, all these things are there. And then what we saw was that the federal government wasn't requiring the professional letters and they were approving these things. They actually approved

that. And then they complained that they approved it. Well, I'm saying, well, don't, you know, fix your administration of Jordan's principle, right? That's wild. Internal records indicate that the value of denied Jordan's principal requests rose from roughly $217 million to $4.95. Canada says it reduced the urgent backlog, while your 26 July submission argues that the public cannot tell whether files were approved, denied, downgraded, or simply closed. What exactly is happening on the ground? Oh, boy. So remember I told you about that bulletin with that substantive equality? Well, what substantive equality is just for your listeners? I know you know that with your legal background, but it's the best quote I've had is from a U.S. Supreme Court Justice in the 1955s, Justice Frankfurter, who said there's no greater inequality than the equal treat end of unequals.

So when you have children who have had carry more burdens of residential, school, unequal services, all the rest of that stuff, then they're going to need a little bit more help to achieve the same outcomes, right? That's substantive equality. So it's a bedrock principal or Jordan's principal. And when the federal government behind the scenes ripped up the definition of substantive equality, they then put out a claim, well, all the urgent backlog is gone now. Well, how did they make any des, and then on top of that, we said, well,

how can you do that when you have no definition? And then second of all, where is your decision-making process? Right? And they said, we don't have one. They have no decision-making process in guidelines. And what they said in reply when we said, well, how can you possibly implement a program without definitions and without any kind of decision-making process?

They said, well, children are unique. And I thought, well, so were people who, come to the border every day with different stories. But that doesn't mean it's a free-for-all for decision-making. And how can the public have any confidence that you're doing the job right when it's all this smoke and mirrors? So that's what we're trying to fix at the tribunal right now. That's why we've got live action on Jordan's principle.

Wow. At 21, you became a provincial child protection worker. You later said that you would remove children believing there must be something better, only to discover that the system often had nothing better to offer. Is there a decision or a child you still revisit in rethinking that chapter of your life? Yeah, there are. I, not only just removals that I did, but also removals that others did. And it wasn't just the social worker making a decision. It was just that you didn't have the tools to do it. I often say that child welfare is not really the major problem.

It's poverty, poor housing, the trauma from residential schools that people didn't get help for, the survivors, and all those parenting skills, the lack of the parenting stuff, didn't get addressed early on. Domestic violence and substance misuse flows with those mental, those are the fires that breed the over-representation. and they're the same fires that hold children down from succeeding in the same way in school and also fuel them going into juvenile justice and having poorer health outcomes. So when I look back when I was 21, I think about some of the kids who came to us and their parents are just fresh out of residential schools, right? Last one didn't close until 1996. A lot of people don't don't, don't, uh,

understand that, right? So when I was doing child welfare, it was right in that period when they were still running or they were just closed. And their parents getting access to parental mental health supports wasn't available, right? So you end up with this definition of neglect in child welfare law that says neglect is when you don't meet the basic needs of the child and a parent is unable or unwilling. Well, with some of these parents, neither was true. The service didn't exist, right? They weren't given a chance to choose. They would have taken the support had it been available, but it wasn't.

And that's why their children went into care. And then when you get into care, doing child welfare, that piece I remember is we had to do all kinds of risk assessments on the parents, right? but we didn't have to do a risk assessment on what we had to provide on our side. And as you got more experience to do in child protection, that's what you'd do. You would look at what is what you have to provide really any better, not just for tonight, but over the long run. And I'm not an idealist. I think some of our kids probably do need to be in child welfare care, but not at the root 17 times the rate of everybody else. That leads me into another question, and I think you're a good person to ask, because I avoid

child and families like the plague, because it's just riddled and like kudos to you and people who go into that field, because it is, like, I worked in criminal justice and I'd see the family lawyers and how hard that work is on everybody involved. Like nobody walks away from a jurisdiction issue or a divorce proceeding and walks away clean. Everybody gets hurt in the long run of that. And I just, I have trouble watching it. I have trouble thinking about how that shapes the child. I mean, between you and I, like, I'm working within my community to try and address sexual abusive children. Yeah. And a pushback that I get from some people, shock broke my heart to know that there were people who didn't want me to dig, who didn't

want me to go through these things, who said, you don't want anybody innocent to get called out. And it's like, Well, of course, but if somebody gets called out who's innocent and we catch 10 predators, I can live with that ratio with a great night's sleep on my hands. But one of the thing that I do see, and I wonder how you think about it because you mentioned your practical. You mentioned you're willing to debate your ideas with the federal government. You seem very grounded in the reality of the circumstances. But I would say that I find your profession, the area of social work, invites in a lot of left-leaning

people to the point where within my community, we've run into issues where social workers are trying to usurp chief and council to do what they think they want to do. One example is they tried to convince a family to move into an abandoned house because they could get cheaper housing there. And we said that house is not available. And they tried to work with a community to try and break the locks and move the family. And we were like, what are you doing to us? Like, we're here to support. We're here trying to help. But you can't approach. us this way. And I find that sometimes they're, they're so sympathetic to victimhood that sometimes they don't realize that to your point, sometimes the best thing is for a child to be in care.

And that's not my preference. That's nobody's preference. But you have to look at the realities. And I wonder, I'm sure you've run into people who are even more extreme on, on that side of like, no child should be in cared no matter what. How do you navigate those tough conversations where their heart is, of course, in the right place? They're trying to support. children, but they're going about it in perhaps the wrong way. Well, I think that one of the things that we see in child welfare is so much burnout. So there are very few people who actually stay around a while. It is actually, you know, and this is kudos to the folks working in First Nations Job

Woffer agencies. The turnover is much less. You're going to find people there. We've been doing it for 20, 30, 40 years. And they know all the extended families. They've got their feet on the ground. They're centered in what's happening. And they're having those hard conversations you're talking about,

about sexual abuse and physical abuse and how we need to hold ourselves accountable. You know, Terry Cross said it really well. He said, self-government is when you embrace what hurts. You know, when we're having those conversations about ourselves and how to hold ourselves to a standard that our kids are safe, and that is really self-government. So that's really important to know. In terms of my colleagues, I've colleagues all over the map, right?

I mean, I am one of the people who often critiques social work, right, as a profession. Because I think that we really have largely abandoned the social justice part of it, which is going after those baseline problems that are feeding so much harm for families, right? Let's get at the real causes. And then if we do that, we'll make things a lot better. And we have to be realistic. someone has to be there for that child. When I'm a great mentor, Elsie Fletalb, he says,

you know, we have to be there for that child. We have to show them someone cares, right? And so, and, you know, I'm going to throw out Mary Tiji's teaching from her mom, Sarah Tici, who said, you don't need laws for children. They've done nothing wrong. What we need are laws for adults. And I've not done believe that. both professional adults but also people in communities and neighbors.

The Privacy Commissioner found that the federal government's wrongfully collected information from your personal Facebook page. Separately, the tribunal found that Canada retaliated against the caring society by excluding you from a meeting. What did that teach you about how government power behaves when it is challenged? Well, that was at a time when they didn't want to talk about the real facts about what was happening. to the children because of their conduct. And so we know in those documents that I have and that the Privacy Commissioner and the Tribunal both looked at when they came to their conclusions,

there's actually an email in there by a person who said, the reason we're doing this is to try and find frivolous and facetious grounds to get the case dismissed. And that often happens to us as First Nations Committee and Inuit peoples when you're challenging the government.

And in my case, I was using the courts to do it, a legitimate, peaceful, legal process to hold the government accountable. They saw that they were losing that process. And so the only other way is to get rid of me, to try and discredit me and therefore discredit the movement. So the documents show that they were following me around. Like they would be following my personal movement, they would note when I was not at some place

and when I was at certain places. They would collect information from my Facebook page, not just things that I posted, but things that other people posted. And then they would take their URLs and they would go on to their pages. So this was like a spider's web. And there was over 189 bureaucrats involved in this, right?

My whole reaction to this thing was, you're spending this kind of money following me, a social worker? I don't even have a parking ticket, right? Like, you should be spending this money, fixing the problems for children. And then you wouldn't have to worry about this case, right? But that has been the instinct, and I will say to you, I can share with you right now, is the federal government, after all those legal findings, was asked to sign an undertaking to say they stopped the surveillance against me.

And they refused. So just even about a year ago, I filed another privacy request to try and get documents about me the department had. They did not deliver those documents as a law requires. And so just this week, I had to file a judicial review to try and get those documents to find out if that surveillance, in fact, is still happening, or if they actually are acting in a legitimate way. So I have no assurance that it's. It's not ongoing. That's wild.

First Nations children represented 42.5% of foster children living in private households in 2021 census. People sometimes call contemporary child welfare the new residential school system. Is that comparison factually sound? Well, I think that there are a lot of similarities. The similarities are that children are removing. and placed in other homes. Where we have some gains is where there's an indigenous child welfare agency. We know from a series of reports that they're far more likely to be able to keep that

child in their extended family, their community, or at least with people that they know. Off-reserve, where 72% of all First Nations children in care live, off reserve, that they receive services largely from the provincial governments. There, the placement rates are not as encouraging. Why? Number one, they're not as good at working with community to support our families so that they can take in an additional child. They don't have those relationships or that culturally appropriate approach. Number two, there is some real issues with the standards that they will sometimes apply.

I'm not saying lower the standards for First Nations kids, far from it. I think we need to have good standards, but we have to support people in being able to achieve those standards, and differentiate between what is a safety standard versus just the way we live, right? like I had to share a room with my sister all the time we were growing up. But under some child welfare regimes, that's not permitted if a child's in foster care. So, you know, we all want to do our due diligence, but we have to be realistic too. And it's really for those off-reserve kids that I'm the most concerned. After 14 years on this case, tribunal member Edward Lustig resigned in July and said that parties on both sides seemed incapable of reasonable,

compromise. Is he right about your side? Well, what I can say is I can stack the number of letters we've written to the minister asking to sit down and actually talk about what Canada's plan is will we have a loving justice and find common ground. The government's response so far is they refuse to do it. They won't even sit down with us. And more importantly than, you know, I mean, the Caring Society, along with the Assembly of First Nations, are the two that brought the case. But there is a group called the National Children's Chiefs Commission. This is a group appointed by leadership outside of Ontario to oversee First Nations reform. They're appointed by all the Chiefs across Canada.

They do incredible work, chaired by Chief Pauline Frost. They have written to Canada. They were a key part of creating loving justice. They wrote to Canada to say, let's sit down and get some. common ground and they won't even respond to their letters. So I don't know. Like, you know, there's only, we can bring the horse to water, but whether they'll drink, they're not drinking. They're, um, they're just wanting to proceed with their own plan. So I'm not sure how to break through on that. Outside Ontario, Canada proposes approximately 27 billion over seven years, followed by

4.4 billion annually. Your loving justice plan calls for First Nations-led government. needs-based funding, independent enforcement, and continuing tribunal oversight. In plain language, what is the single defect that makes Canada's plan unacceptable? Because Canada's plan won't solve the discrimination, therefore it's going to create higher costs for kids. They're going to continue to lose their childhoods, and Canada is going to be cutting another check for class action lawyers. we're not saying that the amount of money is the major issue. Under the Loving Justice Plan, it's in the same ballpark. What we've done is actually build in accountability measures

and use evidence to ensure it actually hits the needs of children on the ground. Canada's a formula, like just some bureaucrats got together. Very well meeting, I'm sure, just as others have been in the past, but it's not hooked to need at all. Or the capacity of the nation to deliver the services. That's one of my biggest concerns. Whenever First Nations want to take over and self-govern, it's not a bad thing to want to do that.

But I think you need to do so very judiciously and very mindfully of the risks. And when we look at certain files where First Nations were eager to take on authority, and then there's a lack of recourse for families to get, proper appeal processes and resources and recourse. I wonder how do you find that balance between the right to self-government while also making sure that people have the opportunity to be treated fairly? Yeah, well, that's a big difference between that Canada's plan and the Loving Justice plan is

we actually, and keep in mind, the Loving Justice plan was created by First Nations, including leadership. And what they said is there needs to be a dedicated capacity building stream so that you actually have funds to be able to go out there and do consultation with community, with experts, develop programs, recruit and train staff, be ready on day one to be able to service those kids. But that takes time, takes some resources. Canada's plan, there is no capacity building stream. They will cut you the check and expect you to deliver the services. And their answer is to say, well, every child gets about 2,600 per capita.

for prevention services to keep them out of child welfare care. And if you're in one of these communities that doesn't have capacity, well, you just take some of those kids' money. Well, what is that going to create? Communities with high capacity are going to be able to give their kids the full amount, but communities with lower capacity are going to have to take money away from their kids to be able to build up the capacity to deliver the services. And then what happens to the kids in the meantime?

That's the kind of lack of thinking and clarity. that we see from the federal government's plan. You have connected continuing noncompliance with residential school denialism. One difficulty from my perspective is that denialism can encompass both rejection of the documented residential school system. And really, to me, good faith questions about particular claims that are being made about Kamloops and the unmarked graves claimed to be there. Camloops has come forward about a month and a half after and said, these are anomalies. We have not confirmed the burials of 215 children in this location, although the reports by the CBC, the New York Times and others purported that there were confirmed bodies.

And I've had Francis Widowson, Tim Tealman, Candice Malcolm, who helped compile the book Great Error. And none of them dispute the real harms that took place in residential schools that people died for a lot of causes, including abuse. What they all dispute is whether or not there are 215 confirmed graves in the Camloops' apple orchard outside of the building. And I'm wondering, where do you draw that line? Well, I think questions are fine. But also accusations without a lot of information are a real problem. And I find people are very quick to rush to judgment without actually having the facts behind you. and having done a good work.

Like I, one of my things is I work with the family of Dr. Pierre Henderson, Bryce. And I don't know if you've had a chance to kind of look at some of his early work, but he used to be the chief medical health officer of the Indian Department, right? Yeah, he wrote a book and he had to come out because of the government did not want to take his claim seriously. So he had to leave in order to have that report published. Yeah, well, he was basically pushed out, right? And he was finding children were dying at a rate of roughly, you know, 25% a year. And if you mapped them over three years, 50% a year, right?

Unnecessarily. He called it a national crime is the title of his pamphlet in 1920. Headlines across the country, right? Where I find this kind of critique from folks like Mrs. Wilson and others, really deficient, is that they're making the central question about are their bones in the ground. Instead of the more substantive question, which is we know even from archival evidence such as from Dr. Peter Henderson-Brice, that thousands of children died unnecessarily. Those are just the ones that died from preventable causes of disease.

But you add on to that the ones that die from maltreatment, et cetera. What have we learned from that as a country? And how has that changed our behavior? But she acknowledges that. Like I interviewed her. She acknowledges Bryce's report. I think she has some, she believes that the government did in response to him coming out,

did more than often gets commented on. But she doesn't dispute any of that. And she commented that what the Soviet Union did by sending priests into community to go live with community rather than having children removed from community was likely a better option, all things considered, than what Canada ended up doing. And like if you were to put the two up against each other, what the candidate did was worse. And she gets labeled a denialist for talking about the Camloops issue, but she's not denying, I think, the former. Well, I'm happy that she's not denying Dr. Peter Henderson's work because it wasn't just Dr. Bryce,

who was, by the way, he was the president. of the American Public Health Association and the author of the Ontario Health Code that has been mapped on to provinces like across the country and the U.S. states. So this was a guy who was top of his profession, but even he had the humility of bringing others along with him, right? Other physicians to be able to validate his claims.

I have a problem when we have people who are so dogmatic and that they're not able to think about what is, what is the good public end that I'm contributing to through my conduct and my behavior in the way that I'm positioning myself, either intentionally or unintentionally. What am I doing that's in the public good?

And so for us, at the Caring Society, for me personally, one of the things I've really tried to do throughout my life is to spend more time trying to do right than being right. I will intentionally surround myself with questions. When I'm running something, I'm actually challenging myself as many ways as I possibly can, to see if there's actually something I'm missing. Something that maybe that, because we all have biases, right? Something that I'm just picking up on more instinctually.

I really want to do the right thing for the kids. And that's why I really invite critique. I invite hard questions. What I don't invite, and which I have very little tolerance for, is people who make very strong dogmatic things that are, where they're not doing that, where they're not having the humility that comes with trying to deal with a do-right versus be right. In closing, what gives you hope about the work that you're doing?

Are there trends that give you a lot of optimism about where you're heading? As we reflect for National Truth and Reconciliation Day, what's inspiring you and any thoughts on what Canadians can start to do to support your work? Oh, my God, it's the kids who inspire me. You know, one thing I'll say is, like, I grew up in the 1960s. And, you know, that's a time it was only in 1960s that First Nations, were really recognized as being people and being able to go off to university. So I now see people like yourself that has a law degree and people who are doctors and, you know,

all kinds of fields that can inspire children. But what I've, why it really, really is close to my heart is I've seen when children are trusted with the truth of all diversities, I mean, about all of the injustices that have happened to First Nations children and equipped with peaceful and respectful. ways that they, as children and as citizens, can help make a difference they do. In our particular case, children filled the courtrooms. There were so many children coming to the hearings that we'd have to book them in and shifts. And we said to the children, we want you to be like newspaper reporters. Don't just believe stuff because someone tells you. Go and listen to all the

different sides of it. Go home and do some research or in your classroom and ask the questions and then come up with your own mind about what you think is right, what is happening here. And if you don't think it's right, then write to the prime minister, because that's a person who can make a change here. Right? Children can write to the prime minister. And, you know, and then if a new piece of information comes up, then you say, hey, there's something I didn't know before. Does that change the way that I feel? What I have found is that children really can see injustices. The rest of us have been bathed into them and we normalize them too often, and we don't see them anymore. Like I always think of the Indian status card. I actually am a registered

Indian. But I ever renewed my card since 2003 and I refuse to do so because I absolutely reject the concept that the government of Canada has any jurisdiction over the identity of First Nations kids. So it's that kind of stuff that gets normalized and even made benevolent that we have to challenge. But children, they can see it right away. What? You get a card because you're the government that says whether or not you're in India?

They don't give that to me and our family is Francophone or our family is Hindi or our family is whatever, right? So they can see that differential treatment. We just got to trust them as adults with the truth. And chew them with love to and compassion encouraged looks like.

Beautiful. How can people connect with your work? Well, they can go on to our website, FNcaringsociety.com. We have a whole pile of stories called The Spirit Bear Books and films done by the great indigenous filmmaker

Amanda Strong and her production company that tell the true stories of how children of all diversities joined with First Nations children to make the gains on Jordan's principle, to fill those courtrooms at the Tribunal, to learn from the past and the removal of monuments. So what does that mean for all the lessons we need to learn? They're all free. They're in French. They're in English. And they're in First Nations languages. So go and check that out.

Thank you so much for doing this and for sharing your time and for your long career advocating for, I think, a very healthy middle ground to make sure that all young people reach their full potential and are given the opportunity to share their gifts, their unique ideas, their spirit, their heart, their energy with the world. We need more of that. And as I said, I think this needs to stay on a political issue where we just recognize our country, our province, our cities, our communities are richer when our children reach their full potential and show us what they're capable of. So thank you for your work on this. Oh, well, thank you very much. And I couldn't agree more. I just think that if we, can really pull this off by

implementing these solutions. We can raise a generation of First Nations 18 and 18 and any of your children never have to recover from their childhoods and a generation of non-Indigenous children who grow up to be their friends in justice. Beautiful.