Generations of youth lost
Quebec must stop separating Indigenous families, commission told
MONTREAL – “We’re losing our children. They’re growing up not knowing who they are and that void is killing them.”
This is Barbara McDonald’s assessment of how Quebec’s youth protection system affects Indigenous families. She says this as someone who has fostered Indigenous children for nearly 50 years.
“I’ve seen (Inuit) babies at the hospital and then, once they’ve been through the system, I see them on the streets years later, hooking,” McDonald said. “That’s how fast we’re losing them.”
McDonald, who is Mohawk, was at a roundtable in Montreal Wednesday offering testimony to the Laurent Commission looking into Quebec’s youth protection system.
Her biggest concern is that so many Indigenous children wind up in state care and — once that happens — they begin to lose their identity. She isn’t hopeful her voice will lead to change.
“I think it’s a lot of talk,” McDonald said. “I think they’re in the hot seat since Granby.”
The Laurent Commission was called last year after a neglected 7-year-old girl died in Granby. Her death sparked a demand for an overhaul of Quebec’s youth protection system.
But McDonald says her community has been calling for reform for years.
“We’ve been dealing with this for generations,” she said. “My uncles lost their language at residential school. Families were torn apart during the ’60s scoop. Now we’re seeing generations of children taken into youth protection.”
McDonald takes her Inuit foster children to the city every week to speak with Inuk elders and hear the Inuktitut language so they can maintain a link to their identity. But that initiative is one she takes entirely on her own.
Nakuset is part of a team of researchers whose report last year found a culture of racism against Indigenous families at Batshaw Youth and Family Centres. Despite the fact that the report was commissioned by Batshaw, Nakuset hasn’t been able to get a meeting with the youth protection service since her report was published two months ago.
She said she intended to corner a representative from Batshaw at Wednesday’s event and deliver a blunt message.
“You can’t keep taking our children,” said Nakuset, the executive director of the Montreal Native Women’s Shelter. “We have the expertise that can help Batshaw do a better job. They have to let us. But we can’t get a seat at the table.”
Batshaw will not answer questions about the report, but in a statement emailed to the Montreal Gazette, a representative from Quebec’s Ministry of Health and Social Services said they are “currently studying it.”
“You can understand that it is consequently premature for us to comment,” the statement reads.
Said Nakuset: “It’s like 15 pages. It doesn’t take that long to read.”
One of the most urgent findings of the report was that Batshaw doesn’t track the number of Indigenous children in its care. What limited data that does exist points to a vast overrepresentation of Indigenous kids in the system, according to sources inside the health ministry.