Firm commitment sought on Indigenous kids in care
Anything less than a firm commitment from the federal government will be a “big disappointment” for Alberta Children’s Services Minister Danielle Larivee when she walks away from meetings in Ottawa about Indigenous children in care.
Larivee and her provincial and territorial colleagues will spend the next two days in Ottawa figuring out how to best address the over-representation of Indigenous families in the child welfare system.
She will be joined at the table by representatives from Indigenous communities across Alberta.
“I’m grateful we’ll all be there with virtually one voice in terms of what needs to happen, and we’ll all work together to make sure action comes out of the meeting,” said Larivee.
Speaking with Postmedia as she prepared to board her flight Thursday to Ottawa, Larivee said she would push for equitable funding for on-reserve child welfare services and “meaningful steps” to empower Indigenous peoples to develop community-led services.
“People have known what the issues are for a very, very long time, but a lack of political will to do something about it has left a lot of Indigenous families behind over the years,” she said.
“What I’m hoping to get from this is a firm commitment to action.”
Indigenous Services Minister Jane Philpott called the emergency meeting in Ottawa late last year.
On Thursday, she laid out a sixpoint plan to reform Canada’s child and welfare services for First Nations, Inuit and Métis families.
Philpott promised money for the reforms would be in the next federal budget, but didn’t say how much the government would spend to fix a problem she has labelled a “humanitarian crisis.”
That plan includes government commitment to work with partners on culturally appropriate programs for prevention, redrawing areas of jurisdiction for child and family services, and developing a better way of collecting and sharing data on the rates and reasons children are taken from homes.
Larivee said while Philpott’s list “sounds quite promising, promises don’t always translate into action.”
“This meeting in Ottawa will be a first step and we’ll be looking to see action fairly soon,” she said.
The meeting comes the day after Alberta’s child welfare panel approved a set of draft recommendations.
The ministerial panel was tasked with identifying systemic problems in child intervention services. It was set up after the death of Serenity, a four-year-old Indigenous girl who died in 2014.