Have a Heart Day 2026 - Background Info

——— Child and Family Services———

First Nations children are hugely over represented in foster care and other out of home care. As of 2023, a First Nations child was 17 times more likely to be placed in foster care compared to a non-Indigenous child. More children are being taken from their homes now than at the height of residential schools. This is not due to First Nations children being more likely to be abused, as studies show that they are actually less likely to be abused compared to non-Indigenous children. Instead, the reason why the overwhelming majority of these children are separated from their families is because their families who love them are not getting the services and support they need to properly take care of them.

A lot of families are poor, and struggle to provide basic necessities such as food and housing. This is not their fault or in their control, because of course poverty never is the victims' fault. Poverty is higher amongst First Nations communities due to the inter generational trauma caused by the genocide Canada has been committing against Indigenous people for centuries. It is also higher due to the widespread discrimination Indigenous people face in their schools, in the job market, in the justice system, and in all aspects of society. On reserves, where many First Nations people live, there are very limited jobs and opportunities.

Disabilities, health problems, and mental health problems are also a reason why many children are taken from their families. Sometimes a parent or caregiver has health problems or mental health problems or disabilities that lead to them not being able to take care of their children. Instead of getting the parent the help, medicine, and treatment they need, the child gets taken away from a family that loves and needs them. Sometimes it's the child who needs these supports but cannot access them without going into care.

Trauma and mental health crises are also higher amongst First Nations communities because of the same reasons that poverty is higher and because of trauma from family separation and the Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women Girls and Two-Spirit People Crisis.

Despite the needs of First Nations people being higher, services on reserves, where many First Nations people live, are worse than services off reserve, and are incredibly inadequate for helping people out of poverty. Of course, the services off reserve are inadequate too, but on reserve it's so much worse. People need support such as mental health therapy, social housing, good education, a good healthcare system, subsidized daycare, income support, and many other things so that they can get back on their feet after trauma, illness, or poverty. And people just aren't getting that.

The services that children and families on reserve do have access to have rigid inclusion criteria, such as requiring an official diagnosis (which can be very difficult to get), so that a lot of the people who need them cannot access them. Services are also confusing and hard to navigate, and don't take into account each family's unique needs such as work hours, making it harder for families.

Even for First Nations living off reserve, the services they get are unequal and inequitable. As I said before, trauma is higher in First Nations communities, and therefore the needs they have are greater. The services they receive, which are the same services as non-Indigenous communities that have much less collective and complex trauma, are not enough to meet their needs. Not to mention, the social services they get from the provinces/territories are not based in their cultures and responsive to their unique experiences and histories, making them inadequate for the off-reserve First Nations communities they are supposed to be helping.

Child and family services agencies are the frontline service providers that can either place a child in foster care or help the family with what they truly need. These service agencies could give prevention services, which fulfill the material and emotional needs of children and families and keep them together, or they could take children away from the families said children need and depend on.

So what causes child and family service agencies to fail children and families?

Well first of all, child and family service agencies (CFS agencies) that are run by provinces or territories, which deliver services to children off reserve, are not based in or responsive of First Nations cultures and values. The same is true for CFS agencies on reserve that are governed by the federal government rather than the First Nation community on said reserve. Without understanding First Nations cultures adequately, these agencies cannot truly understand the children and their situations. In addition, CFS agencies not run by First Nations often have case workers and social workers who have their own biases and discrimination, which cause them to take children from their families. Additionally, children are often taken away after just a couple of consultations with a case worker, which isn't enough to judge what their family situation is.

On reserve, many First Nations communities are setting up their own CFS agencies that follow the guidance and governance of the communities. These agencies are trying their best to keep families together and give them what they need, however, they aren't often able to do so. Why?

Well, the problem is funding. If a CFS agency doesn't have the funding needed to give families the help that they truly need, often what ends up happening is that the children end up in foster care, because the families want their kids to have the services they can't give them. The government isn't giving CFS agencies the funding they need to give families real help. They are also delaying the funding they give so that agencies have to wait long periods for funding. This is made worse by the fact that agencies have to wait until they have no funding left before being allowed to apply for more funding. Their requests are often denied, without clear reasons being given for the denials. And the money given to them is often unpredictable, with changes in policy happening without notice or consultation. The Canadian government's decisions of who is eligible for what help shifts without the stakeholders being consulted. Buildings and other physical infrastructure necessary to provide services are not given resources to be built and maintained. And the whole process of getting money from the government is very confusing and burdensome for CFS agencies, making it so they have less time and energy to focus on actually helping families.

As well, new First Nation-run CFS agencies do need time and support and money in order to build the capacity to provide prevention services. They need to hire and train workers, make plans and processes, and figure out what the community needs and how to best deliver that. The Canadian government, once again, is providing no support for this capacity building, meaning that many CFS agencies cannot deliver prevention services that keep families together.

All of this is causing children to suffer immensely. First of all, taking a child away from their family is the most cruel, most traumatizing thing you could do to a child or to a parent, and creates severe lifelong trauma. Secondly, taking a child into foster care doesn't just take the child away from their family, but also from their neighbours, friends, schoolmates, extended family, and basically everyone they know. Children in foster care are usually moved to a new place every year, which creates wave after wave of forced separation from everyone a child meets. Children aren't allowed to contact people they knew while living with their family or in a previous foster home, and often they don't know how anyways since they don't have their contact information. All of this is basically state-sanctioned child torture.

The lifelong trauma caused by this system creates many problems for children. 41% of children from foster care end up homeless by the time they're 24. Less than one percent of youth coming from foster care go on to receive any kind of post secondary education. These are smart kids. These are capable kids. Except, they've been put through so much hardship and given so little support and they are losing opportunities.

So what do we need in order to create a better system for children and families?

Well, a number of First Nations-led organizations have brought the Canadian government to court over its discrimination against First Nations children in the child and family services system. In 2016 the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal told Canada to stop discriminating against First Nations children, but Canada is continuing to discriminate. Therefore, the Tribunal has said that both Canada and the people who brought the case should form their plans for ending the discrimination, and the Tribunal will see if the plans are good.

The plan made by the First Nations is called the Loving Justice National Plan. It was made in consultation with First Nations communities, elders, youth, experts in CFS, and, most importantly, First Nations with experience in the foster care system.

The core tenants of the Loving Justice National Plan are as follows: First Nations communities will govern and run their own agencies, but they will also govern the government of Canada's behaviour when it comes to First Nations child and family services. This is to ensure that Canada is giving the funding needed to keep children together and is not blocking efforts to provide good child and family services. There needs to be flexibility for each nation to have the unique needs of their region met. Canada also must fund CFS agencies in an equitable way. There needs to be a block funding approach so that agencies can use their funding for whatever services they need, rather than only being able to use it for certain things. There needs to be full transparency and public accountability of Canada and the CFS system. And there needs to be adequate accountability measures that force Canada to stop any discrimination it might do in the future. There needs to be research and analysis into the outcomes of the system for children, so as to continually improve the system under the leadership of First Nations communities.

A reformed child and family services system will also provide services for young adults who have come from the foster care or out-of-home care system. Other young adults have a lot of physical, financial, emotional, and knowledge support from their families. Young adults aging out of foster care do not get that, as they are forced away from their families and are pushed into adulthood abruptly, before they are ready. Not to mention, these youth are traumatized. One of the most important services for young adults would be to help them reunite with their families. Healthy relationships are one of the most important things that young adults need in order to thrive both economically and emotionally.

Most of all, the reformed child and family services system needs to be led by, developed with, and accountable to First Nations people with experience being in out of home care, since they are the ones who know best the damages a bad system can cost. The voices of youth and others in and from care are often missing from decision making, even though they know firsthand what children need.

The federal government's plan for reform, on the other hand, does not give authority to the First Nations communities that are affected by the system, does not guarantee adequate funding, and does not have good accountability mechanisms.

The Loving Justice National Plan, however, is not enough on its own to stop discrimination and inequity for First Nations children and families, as the creators of the plan have said.

First of all, it does not address the children who don't live on reserve. Each reserve has a portion of their community who live off reserve, due to a lack of housing, services, and economic opportunities. Each nation needs to be given the authority, support, knowledge, resources, and funding to deliver good, equitable, and culturally based child and family services to their off-reserve members so as to keep the families of off-reserve members together. This requires well-explained and well-understood reciprocal agreements with the provinces and territories.

The Dene Nation and the First Nations living in the North West Territories are not included in the court case between Canada and the prosecution. Therefore, they will not necessarily be included in the Loving Justice National Plan. However, they absolutely should and absolutely need to be included in the Loving Justice Plan, since their children and families have the same human rights to have their needs met and be with their families.

Finally, no matter how good the child and family services system is, children and families will continue to suffer and not have their needs met as long as services in general are underfunded. First of all, people don't just need services for their children, they need many services in order to get out of poverty. Secondly, a lot of children or families have multiple needs or needs spanning multiple service sectors. For example, an autistic child who also has mental health problems might need therapy to learn good coping mechanisms, and also need extra help at school, and also need medication for their mental health, and also need cultural programs. Services need to be integrated so that people can get all the different things they need instead of only having bits and pieces of support. Implementing the Spirit Bear plan is necessary, as it would improve and increase the services offered to communities.

Any agreement made with First Nations communities needs to be well-understood by the communities, and thus they need to be given funding to have independent experts look at the agreements with them.

Ultimately, we can create a future for First Nations children where they grow up with their families who love them, with their communities and culture, and with all of their needs met, so that they can have a happy and fulfilling childhood and a happy and fulfilling life.

——— The Loving Justice National Plan———


First Nations children are being taken from families who love them and who they love. They are being taken away from their families, their communities, the places they grew up in, and their cultures, and put into the foster care system.

There are many reasons this is happening. Firstly, there is a lot more poverty and trauma in First Nations communities because of the historical and ongoing racism, discrimination, and genocide. Secondly, social services on reserves - such as healthcare, education, housing, financial aid, etc - are of much worse quality, and even off-reserve services are not adequate and culturally appropriate. One of the main reasons children are being taken is that child and family service agencies do not have the funding, resources, and capacity to give families the help they truly need.

Many families cannot pay for the necessities they need to take care of their kids. Or they have a physical or mental illness they can't access treatment for which makes it harder to take care of their child, or their child has an illness they can't access treatment for. It's the job of child and family services agencies to give the families the help they need so that they can give their kids what they need. But without funding and other resources, they cannot do that.

A lot of First Nations communities are starting to make their own child and family service agencies, run and governed by them. This is good, because it means that they can ensure that the people in these agencies and the way that the agencies are run are non-discriminatory. But there is still a large funding shortage, as well as many other problems.

Canada must change its behaviour if we are to see progress. In 2016, the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal ruled that Canada has been discriminating against First Nations children. Despite many orders from the Tribunal, Canada has not stopped its discriminatory behaviour.

The Loving Justice National Plan was made by First Nations social services experts, in equal partnership with First Nations communities throughout Canada. It is based on the best available evidence from the past thirty years. It is aimed at putting structures in place to stop Canada from discriminating against First Nations children and to prevent the reoccurrence of discrimination, which will keep families together.

—Purpose:—

-Creating enduring protection that ensures that mistreatment, discrimination, and bad outcomes don't happen in the future.

-Creating substantive equality, which means that there will be equal outcomes for First Nations and non-Indigenous children.

-Protecting and nurturing the holistic wellbeing of children - mind, body, emotions, and spirit. This means that the basic needs of children are met, that they have a good education, and that they have a sense of belonging and attachment, among other things.

-Ensuring all children are connected to their family, community, culture, and environment.

-Ensuring that contemporary and historic disadvantage are considered on both an individual and systemic level.

-Ensuring that disabled children can fully participate in their family and culture.

-Ensuring that children have their views and desires considered in decisions affecting them first and foremost, and that secondly families and communities also get their views and desires considered in decisions affecting them.

-Creating a system that adapts to changing, community-specific needs to protect the best interests of children.

-Respecting the sovereignty of each community and of First Nations in general. This means that First Nations communities should be the ones defining key terms like like "safety" "wellbeing" "family" "child" "kin" "cultural continuity" "culture-based safety" "inter generation equity" "substantive equality" "wellbeing" and "structural drivers." It also means that communities and the experts they trust should define their needs. It also means that First Nations communities determine their legal mechanisms, instruments, information, resources, and processes in the jurisdiction of services, while having accurate information to do so.

-Restoring and transmitting the culture, language, spirituality, traditions, and knowledge of each unique culture, and fighting assimilation.

-Following and implementing the Truth and Reconciliation Committee's Calls to Action and the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls' Calls for Justice.

—Governance:—

First Nations communities and especially people with experience in the child welfare and foster care system should be the leaders when it comes to the child and family service system both on a local and national level. They should be actively involved in governance and decision making, both on the local and national level. All the people in the system should ultimately be accountable to them, including the Canadian government.

Experts in the field of child and family services, social work, and First Nations communities should advise and provide research and information. But they should not be decision makers, because the community themselves know what outcomes they want for their children and families.

Each community's child and family service agency needs to be run and lead by the community, according to the laws made by the community.

There needs to be a National Oversight Council led by rights holders, with representatives from each community chosen by each community. This council will decide what the design of reformed child and family services in Canada would be. They would also manage and control the implementation of the reforms, and continue to manage and control the child and family services system once the reforms have been put in place. They will, most importantly, compel Canada to act in accordance to the needs and wants of First Nations communities when it comes to First Nations child and family services. They will also ensure that Canada properly funds child and family services. They will consult with and report back to communities, ensuring that the Canadian government is accountable to communities and human rights.

Canada must adequately fund the National Oversight Council as much as it needs, and give it the power and independence it needs to do its job.

As well as the National Oversight Council, there needs to be a National First Nations Child and Family Services Technical Table. It will be composed of the First Nations Child and Family Caring Society, which is a nonprofit that has fought for the rights of First Nations children for years, as well as experts from each region. The National Technical Table will work with Regional Technical Tables to advise the National Oversight council. They will review all the policies, legislation, regulations, bulletins, and budgets made by the government of Canada and by Indigenous Services Canada (which oversees service provision to Indigenous communities). They will see what the likely outcomes of all the laws, regulations, policies, budgets, etc are and they will make recommendations to the National Oversight Council, which will have the power to change things that are bad.

There are also other jobs the National Technical Table will do. They will develop, implement, and evaluate an impact assessment tool to see how the system is impacting children and families, and whether children and families are being harmed or helped by the system. They will communicate their findings with communities. They will work with youth and people with experience in care to support their participation in research, consultation, and governance. The Table will work with the National Secretariat and with Regional Technical Tables, and will help the Regional Technical Tables develop the capacity to do their work well. They will also help First Nations communities to set up their own Child and Family Services agencies governed by the communities.

Canada must fund the National Technical Table however much they need in order to do their job, and will allow the Table to do their job independently and without pressure.

There will also be a National First Nations Child and Family Secretariat. This position will be comprised of one or more apolitical First Nations-led nonprofits appointed by the National Oversight Council and rights holders. They will be tasked with collecting, analyzing, and disseminating data about outcomes, best practices, and other information. They will educate professionals and the public about best practices and other research. They will use the Measuring to Thrive framework to look at the data they collect. The Measuring to Thrive framework helps us learn whether or not children and families are thriving and whether they will be thriving in the current and planned future systems. The National Secretariat will help groups and communities around the country to convene and to get knowledge. They will support the National Oversight Council and the National Technical Table, and will help Regional Secretariats build capacity to do their jobs. They will help and support youth and people with experience in foster care to participate in research, consultation, and decision making. And they will support the dispute resolution and accountability processes.

They will also help with and support the Public Funding Review. The Public Funding Review will be done every five years by independent, non-political experts with experience in finance, First Nations, and Child and Family Services in order to ensure that the funding approach and the conduct of Indigenous Services Canada (the government department responsible for Indigenous people) is meeting people's real and holistic needs.

Canada must fund the National Secretariat as much as it needs, and allow it to function independently and without pressure.

There also needs to be National Technical Advisory Committees, composed of experts assigned by the National Oversight Council, to provide advice on the design, implementation, and evaluation of child and family services.

There needs to be Regional Technical Tables, which are composed of First Nations from the region who are experts. They will look at all the legislation, policies, regulations, agreements, budgets, and conducts of the federal government and Indigenous Services Canada to ensure that they are in line with what their region needs and wants. They will review data and research from the Regional Secretariats to make recommendations, getting extra expertise if needed. They will support the participation of youth and people with experience in child welfare in all matters related to child and family services. And they will meet with Indigenous Services Canada. They will report to and be accountable to the communities that they serve.

The government of Canada must fund the Regional Technical Tables however much they need, and must also help with any capacity building they ask for help with. They must allow the Tables to act independently, without any pressure from the government, financial or otherwise.

Finally, there should be Regional Secretariats, which will be apolitical independent First Nation-led nonprofits authorized by their communities. They should support the design, delivery, evaluation, and capacity building for prevention services, alternative care, post-majority services, and band representation consistent with the Measuring to Thrive framework. They should also support needs assessments, which find out what the community needs.They should support and coordinate inter jurisdictional service delivery, so that services given by First Nations themselves, by the provinces and territories, and by the federal government all work smoothly together.

The Regional Secretariats should, like the National Secretariat, be a centre for the community to convene, and a centre point for public and professional knowledge mobilization. They should support the Regional Technical Tables and support the participation of youth and people with experience being in child welfare to participate fully in decision making and research.

The Canadian government must fund the Regional Secretariats as much as they need to be funded and should also help them build capacity when asked. The government may not pressure the decision making and activities of the Regional Secretariats, through financial means or otherwise, and must respect the independence of the body.

All of these organizations must be set up and fully operational within six months of the reform plan being approved. Additionally, Canada must work with and listen to First Nations youth in order to set up and fund youth advocacy and empowerment organizations.

Canada must be legally required to fully cooperate with all of these bodies. This includes providing information to the bodies promptly and without delay. It also includes implementing all of the National Oversight Committee's decisions on current and future child welfare measures, completely and without delay. Canada must get rid of all plans, policies, regulations, decisions, bulletins, processes, etc that were made without the approval of the National Advisory Committee or the National Children's Chiefs Council (the representatives currently leading the negotiations with Canada).

—Funding:—

As it stands today, child and family service agencies are heavily underfunded, which means that they cannot help families with what they actually need and instead are pushed towards tearing families apart. There are many other problems with funding, with Indigenous Services Canada denying many requests without reason and creating long delays. The baseline funding determined by the federal government in 2018 doesn't account for the actual needs of communities, agencies, and children, and it has not improved since then. Indigenous Services Canada's behaviour makes it so the current system of claims-based funding is not adequate or appropriate. Children and families with complex needs, especially, do not have the funding needed to actually help them and keep their families together.

The Reformed Funding Approach was made in partnership with the Institute for Fiscal Studies and Democracy to ensure that First Nations get the funding they need to keep families together. It will be implemented, and then it will be assessed for impact and how it can be improved. Once the assessment is done, we will know how to make an even better funding system and thus will develop and implement the Fully Reformed Funding Approach. The Fully Reformed Funding Approach must be an improvement to the Reformed Funding Approach. Canada cannot do anything that leads to less funding (accounting for inflation) or a worse funding structure than the Reformed Funding Approach.

The Reformed Funding Approach must be guaranteed and must not be dependant on which party is in power. It must only be replaced by the Fully Reformed Funding Approach, under the authority of the National Oversight Council and the communities said Council is accountable to. The Reformed Funding Approach must be statutory, as must be the Fully Reformed Funding Approach. And Canada must not be allowed to use any other legislation to try to justify not adhering to either funding approach. The same goes for the Fully Reformed Funding Approach. It must be statutory and not dependent on which government is in power, and Canada cannot do anything to justify not adhering to it.

The Reformed Funding Approach (and its successor) must be interpreted and implemented in adherence to the Canadian Human Rights Act and UN human rights declarations. It must ensure that all child and family service agencies are fully funded as much as they need to be in order to holistically safeguard the multifaceted needs of every child. It must also ensure that all funding is predictable and timely, leaving no agency to wait for funding. There must be long term funding guarantees all communities can depend on.

Canada must not be allowed to reallocate funding from other services, such as housing, to increase funding for Child and Family Services, either directly or indirectly. The funds need to be placed in a Special Purpose Allotment so that they cannot be used for other purposes.

There will be baseline funding for each agency serving First Nations communities. The baseline funding will be however much the community and agency asks for, and will go towards the cost of providing services. It will need to be adequate to provide all the services children need, especially prevention services that keep them with their families. Along with the baseline funding, there will be top up funding that will also be adequate and what the agency and community asks for. It will go towards things like information technology, data and results collection, poverty funds, capacity development, emergency funds, capital maintenance, additional money for prevention services, resources and funding to account for communities that are remote, insurance, cultural programs, and cultural sensitivity training. On top of that, there needs to be emergency funds for situations such as natural disasters or other emergencies. And there needs to be additional funding for procuring, building, and maintaining physical infrastructure, representative services for individuals, families, and communities, post majority services including family reunification, the development of agencies controlled by First Nations, planning funds, and funds for special circumstances.

All of this funding will be block funding. That means that there won't be funding for each specific aspect, such as a separate fund for prevention services and a separate fund for protection services, or a separate fund for information technology and and a separate fund for capital maintenance within the top up funding. This will give agencies the flexibility they need to spend their money on whatever their actual needs are. One agency could need more money for one aspect of their work versus another, while another agency has different needs. If any funding request is not granted within thirty days, the National Oversight Council needs to get involved, and there must be interim funding for the agency's request while the matter is being resolved. If Indigenous Services Canada does deny a request, which they really shouldn't do, then they will need to give clear reasons as to why and interim funding must be given while the matter is resolved in the Dispute Resolution Mechanism.

A lot of First Nations haven't yet developed a child and family service agency that runs under their guidance and their laws. They need to be given the resources, support, and funding in order to do so. They need to plan and create the agency, but they also need the time, support, and funding to build capacity so that they can provide the necessary services to keep families together and create the best outcomes for children. They need the necessary support to build a culturally sensitive and culturally educated workforce. All the funding and support must come from an evidence-informed model where the communities themselves get to determine the support and resources they get.

There needs to be enough funding to provide good post-majority supports for young adults as well. Post-majority supports help young adults who aged out of the foster care system, and other young adults who had contact with child and family services as children, to get the support, resources, care, and education they need in order to build a good life for themselves. One of the most important post majority supports is family reunification for young adults who have been taken from their family. Eventually, the National Oversight Council will develop an evidence-based plan to deliver post-majority supports in a way that ensures equal outcomes for First Nations youth compared to non-Indigenous youth, and the Public Funding Review done every five years will also guide post-majority supports. In the meantime though, funding will be what agencies ask for.

When it comes to capital funding, aka funding for physical buildings and vehicles and stuff needed to provide services, there needs to be a plan to improve the system. The plan will be developed based on First Nations data, by First Nations capital and service experts, and approved by the National Oversight Council and the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal. The plan needs to be evidence-based, culturally appropriate, creating equal outcomes, accounting for each community's distinct needs and circumstances, and in line with the Loving Justice National Plan.

Both before and after the capital funding plan, Canada must meet all capital funding requests fast and without gaps, delays, or denials. First Nations and child and family service agencies need to be believed and listened to when they report their needs, and those reported needs must be met. If any capital funding takes longer than 30 days to be delivered, the National Oversight Council and National Technical Table needs to get involved. If Canada does deny a request, they need to provide clear reasons for doing so and that denial will go to the Dispute Resolution Mechanism. If a project is in the Dispute Resolution Mechanism, Canada must provide interim funding so services can continue being delivered.

Canada must fund an independent First Nations-led Family Wellbeing Research Fund. This fund will do research into the structural drivers that cause child and family service contact, such as poverty. They will find long term reforms that address these structural drivers. They will check the quality of services and whether the orders of the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal are being followed. This research fund will allow for culturally-grounded research and solutions.

Funding needs to increase in accordance with inflation and population. Inflation must be calculated based on the Consumer Price Index, and must on top of that upwardly adjust for local inflation. Indigenous Services Canada's current system for determining population is terrible, and the National Oversight Council, National Technical Table, and the groups suing Canada must create a better census system in three years, which is an endeavour Canada must support and listen to.

There needs to be flexibility for First Nations and service providers to get extra funding on top of the Reformed Funding Approach if that's what they need.

Canada must fund and implement the transition to the Reformed Funding Approach. And after the Fully Reformed Funding Approach is in place, Canada must continue funding representative services at actual cost for 180 days. After the 180 days, representative services will be funded according to the Fully Reformed Finding Approach.

There is something that is inadequate about the Loving Justice Plan, which the makers of the Plan clearly highlight. The Plan does not incorporate funding for First Nations children and families living off reserve. Any funding approach must ensure that First Nations groups can themselves give all the same services to their children and families off reserve as what their on reserve people get. There also needs to be enough funding so that every child and family recognized by their community gets the same services, regardless of whether or not they qualify under the Indian Act, because the Indian Act leaves a lot of people out who are recognized by their communities.

—Accountability:—

Canada, First Nations, and child and family service providers all need to be transparent and accountable to the communities. Said communities should be the ultimate authority on decisions of policy and funding regarding child and family services. All decisions made need to be clearly communicated to everyone involved. Indigenous Services Canada especially should have accountability to fund things properly and in a timely way and to behave in a way that is fair to First Nations communities.

The Canadian Prime Minister must collaborate with First Nations to create and publish a public yearly report on Canada's compliance with the First Nations child and family services reform plan. This report will include a review on funding methods and amounts. The National Oversight Council will comment on the report, and their comments will be publicly published with the report. The reporting of outcomes should involve the voices, opinions, experiences, and desires of children, youth, and families, especially those affected by child and family services.

Canada must also publicly published the fact that their current child and family services system discriminates against First Nations. They must publicly published the cause of the discrimination, steps taken to remedy it, and, most importantly, the outcome of those steps. This must be done in a non-misleading way.

Before changing the Reformed Child and Family Services system in any way, the National Technical Table and National Oversight Council must report on the impact on children and youth. No changes can be made without the approval of the National Oversight Council.

The National Oversight Council, National Technical Table, Regional Technical Tables, elders, youth, and First Nations people with experience in foster care will work together to make a Child and Youth Impact Assessment Tool. This tool will insure that the child and family services system is helping children and youth rather than harming them, and is meeting their needs.

A lot of agencies rely on the province or territory they're in for some aspects of service delivery. There needs to be full transparency on services provided by provinces and territories, and on the terms, funding, and intended outcomes of said services. Canada needs to, in partnership with First Nations, ensure that all agreements with provinces and territories are meeting the principles and goals of child and family services reform. First Nations need to be given all the funding and support needed to fully participate in this process.

Canada must give all the relevant data to National and Regional Secretariats and Technical Tables, within ten days of being asked, calibrated to the Measuring to Thrive framework.

The Canadian Human Rights Tribunal must maintain its oversight and jurisdiction until reform is fully complied with and discrimination is demonstrably ended. In order for the Tribunal to cease its jurisdiction over Child and Family Services the following must happen: Canada must fully implement the Reformed Funding Approach. The Expert Advisory Committee and National Oversight Council must work with the parties suing Canada to determine whether discrimination has permanently stopped. Under the guidance of communities, Canada must amend agreements with provinces and territories to align with the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal's orders. And there needs to be good measures to detect and effectively stop any discrimination that happens in the future.

—Alternate Dispute Resolution Mechanism:—

The Alternate Dispute Resolution Mechanism is vital to keeping Canada accountable to communities, children, and families. Whenever the government of Canada, Indigenous Services Canada, or any other actor behaves in a way that is harmful for First Nations children, the Alternate Dispute Resolution Mechanism can stop the harmful behaviour.

The Mechanism must be:

-Independent

-Grounded in First Nations law

-Expert-informed

-Based on human rights

-Grounded in the best interests of children

-Timely

-Easily accessible

-Led by First-Nations

The Mechanism must be able to give clear, specific, actionable orders that the involved parties must follow, which are enforceable in court. It must be able to respond to and remedy both systemic and specific failures. And it must ensure that the Fully Reformed Funding Approach prevails in any disputes. It needs to be able to respond to the unique circumstances of each case, and must provide immediate interim remedy when a child is being harmed.

There needs to be effective measures that stop all retaliation against people and groups bringing cases to the Alternate Dispute Resolution Mechanism. These anti retaliation measures include but are not limited to injunctive relief and compensation.

The Alternate Dispute Resolution Mechanism must itself be accountable and transparent. This includes them being subject to mandatory periodic reviews and regular non-discrimination assessments. The proceedings and results of cases must be fully public unless the litigant asks for it not to be.

Canada and the people suing them must fund honourable, impartial, independent, experienced, and non-political staff to be part of the dispute resolution mechanism. The staff need to have not previously served a political role, and need to disclose any conflicts of interest. These staff will be chosen from a list given by the National Oversight Council, and the National Oversight Council and the parties suing Canada need to approve or deny the decision makers that are chosen.

The Alternate Dispute Resolution Mechanism cannot have the power to amend Canadian Human Rights Tribunal orders or make changes in funding structures.

Canada must fully cooperate with the making of the mechanism and to the processes of dispute resolution and the rulings given.

—Regional Variations:—

Each community and region is unique, with unique needs, obstacles, history, and culture. That is why there needs to be enough flexibility in the system to allow each community to adapt child and family service provision to their own situations and cultures.

Canada must negotiate regional variations that meet or exceed the Reformed Funding Approach, and later the Fully Reformed Funding Approach. These agreements must be made in good faith and the desires of the communities should be obeyed. These agreements must be able to be reworked to meet the constantly changing circumstances of each community. Canada must fund and support regional approaches that are effective, liked by communities, respectful of the rights and needs of children, and in line with the long term reforms outlined in the Loving Justice National Plan.

While negotiations with the regions are ongoing, Canada must report on these negotiations monthly to the National Oversight Council. Canada must submit all of the plans they negotiated to the National Oversight Council for approval, within six months of the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal approving the reform plan. If Canada takes more than six months, the regions that are waiting will give their own plans to the Tribunal and Canada will follow those plans.

Canada must also fund and support independent community-based technical hubs that support community accountability, connection-building, and coordination. These hubs will help people participate in national decision making, and help with workforce training, recruitment, and development.

The Regional Technical Tables will develop plans to build the capacity of their corresponding Regional Secretariats, and Canada will fund the capacity building of the Regional Secretariats as much as is asked for.

Canada must publish on their website the full details of all existing agreements with provinces and territories. They must do this 30 days after the reform plan gets approved and 14 days after a new agreement gets made. Also within 30 days of reform plan approval, Canada must give all affected First Nations the support, funding, and resources needed to negotiate new federal-provincial or federal-territorial agreements. If any provinces or territories refuse to negotiate, Canada must fund the services that the provinces would've otherwise funded. The provinces and territories will also collect all relevant data and share it with the Secretariats, Technical Tables, community hubs, and anyone else who needs the information.

—Indigenous Services Canada Reforms:—

Indigenous Services Canada (ISC) is the government department tasked with funding services to Indigenous people. There are many problems with the organization. They take a top down, paternalistic approach that disregards communities' experiences, knowledge, expertise, cultures, and needs. The decision making is unilateral, meaning that communities are not listened to and decisions are made in an authoritarian way. This includes decisions about funding and policy. They have rigid policies that lead to the unique needs of each community not being met. And they are not held accountable for their conduct.

All of this has lead to many problems. There are lengthy wait times in the approvals of applications and in all correspondences. Each department within Indigenous Services Canada (ISC), when contacted by people, communities, or service providers, say that another department will fund the program or service. This leads to programs and services getting no funding. There are problems with staffing and regional structures. There are jurisdictional barriers preventing people and groups from getting what they need.

As we can see, Indigenous Services Canada needs major changes. They need permanent, independent, and legally-binding oversight. The first thing that needs to happen is there needs to be an Indigenous-led joint governance body that governs ISC and has the authority to give legally-binding orders. The National Oversight Council needs to also be involved in the governance of ISC. There needs to be third-party evaluation of ISC by Indigenous rights groups, including the Assembly of Seven Generations, which is a nonprofit run by young people focused on child and youth advocacy, charity, and cultural revival. ISC cannot change governance, accountability mechanisms, or performance without approval from Indigenous communities.

The Expert Advisory Committee has been formed to make an evidence-informed work plan to get rid of discrimination within ISC. Canada must follow this work plan and give the Expert Advisory Committee the funding it needs to properly carry out all of its work. The Committee itself must be transparent, public, and independent, reporting to the Chiefs in Assembly and Canadian Human Rights Tribunal. The Expert Advisory Committee must determine whether there are enough safeguards in place to stop Indigenous Services Canada from discriminating again, and report its conclusions to the Tribunal and Chiefs in Assembly.

Some measures ISC needs to take:

-Removing systemic barriers such as challenges coordinating across governments

-Creating their own human resources department

-Removing proposal-based and competitive funding mechanisms

-Closing loopholes

Additionally, there needs to be an independent ombudsperson or commissioner for child rights and wellbeing. This ombudsperson/commissioner would represent the rights and needs of children and families, and would help children and families represent themselves, to enact positive change in ISC. This role will be guided by First Nations values and culture.

ISC also needs to publicly acknowledge that it is and has been very harmful and discriminatory. They must implement the recommendations and orders of First Nations communities. And they must make public commitments towards change. They must publicly report what progress they are making towards these commitments.

Ultimately, Indigenous Services Canada needs to act with respect, transparency, and accountability. They need to be based on the human rights of Indigenous people, and build healthy relationships with communities. The communities themselves should make decisions about policies, funding, and all other things that affect them. ISC should prioritize creating good outcomes for children. And they need to be led by Indigenous communities themselves.

—Data Collection:—

There will be many ways of doing data collection, research, analysis, and reviews baked into the reformed child and family services system. These ways will ensure that all parties are acting honourably, and that the outcomes for children and families are good.

First of all, there will be a Public Funding Review every five years. This Review will be done by an independent, non political expert recommended by the National Technical Table and appointed by the National Oversight Council. The people doing the Review will be experienced in finance, First Nations, and First Nations child and family services. The Review will ensure that the funding structures, and the conduct of the government and ISC is effectively meeting people's holistic needs and creating good outcomes. Indigenous Services Canada, the federal government, all provincial and territorial governments, and all other government departments must fully cooperate with this Review and provide data within ten days of being asked. This Review will be made in consultation with First Nations communities and service providers.

The National Technical Advisory Committee will oversee the Review and provide guidance where needed. The National and Regional Technical Tables and other First Nations experts will review and comment of the draft Public Funding Review, which will then be provided in English and French to all First Nations communities for approval. The Parliament of Canada will look at and publicly report on the Review within 60 days, and implement the recommendations. Any disputes regarding the implementation of these recommendations will go to the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal or Alternate Dispute Resolution Mechanism.

The Public Funding Review itself will be transparent and accountable, and will publicly post its methods, sample size, criteria, findings, and recommendations.

Another review that needs to be done is the review of the Reformed Funding Approach. In the third year of the Approach's operations, the review will be done to see what the outcomes of the Reformed Funding Approach are and how the Approach can be improved even more to create better outcomes for children and families. This will inform the Fully Reformed Funding Approach.

As said before, the census system of Indigenous Services Canada is woefully inadequate. The National Technical Table, National Oversight Council, the groups suing Canada, and the Canadian government must work together to create a better census system.

Canada must also fund a First Nations-led Child and Family Wellbeing Research Fund. This Fund will research the structural drivers - such as poverty and mental illness in the family - that cause children to come into contact with child and family services, and will also research what reforms to do to fix these structural drivers. The Fund will also check whether the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal's orders are being followed and what the quality of services is.

Post majority support is another area that needs more research. A body appointed by the National Oversight Council will find an evidence-based plan for creating post-majority supports that ensure equal outcomes for youth involved in child and family services compared to other youth.

The next thing that needs to be created is a Child and Youth Impact Assessment Tool. This Tool will be developed by the Regional and National Technical Tables, the National Oversight Committee, the parties suing Canada, First Nations communities, elders, youth, and people who have had experience being in foster care and other alternative care.

The Prime Minister must consult with the National Oversight Council to publish a yearly report on Canada's compliance with the child and family services reform plan. The report will be published publicly, along with the National Oversight Council's comments on the report.

As it stands right now, there is a lack of capacity to collect all the necessary data relating to child and family services. Canada must fund the recruitment, training, and retention of staff for data collection and evaluation, and fund structures for said purpose. These structures should be led by communities and be transparent, culturally appropriate, and accountable. There should be inter jurisdictional coordination and shared regional data systems. The funding for any data collection cannot come from funding that would otherwise go towards service provision.

—Ways the Loving Justice Plan Needs to be Improved:—

The people who made the Loving Justice National Plan acknowledge that it has some shortcomings, which must be improved in the final product. First of all, communities in the North West Territories and also the Dene Nation are left out, and should instead be fully included into the Loving Justice National Plan. Secondly, children and families off reserve are left out, and First Nations reserves need to be given the funding and support to provide substantively equal services to their community members who live off reserve.

—Canada's Reform Plan—

There are many problems with the plan made by the Canadian government regarding First Nations child and family services reform. First of all, ultimate authority in that plan goes to the government of Canada and not the communities, children, and families being affected, both on a national and regional level. The funding structure doesn't do enough to ensure communities get their needs met. There's no funding for capacity building within service agencies or for legal or technical advice for communities. Canada's accountability and enforcement mechanisms are weak and do not give decision making power to First Nations, who are the people being affected by this whole system. If local communities don't reach a regional agreement with Canada, they will be forced to default to Canada's wishes.

——— The Ontario Final Agreement———

First Nations children are being taken from loving homes and put in foster care. This is happening in Ontario as well. In Ontario, First Nations children are 5 times more likely to be investigated by child and family services (CFS), 9 times more likely to have an ongoing file opened for them by CFS, and 14 times more likely to be separated from their families. This is not because they are being abused. Children from First Nations and other Indigenous families are actually less likely to be abused compared to non-Indigenous children. However, they are more likely to suffer from poverty, from physical and mental health issues and disabilities that aren't being properly treated, from caretakers struggling due to issues and disabilities that aren't properly treated, intimate partner violence against their parent, less social supports, and things like that.

It is clear that families of First Nations children who are being taken from their homes are trying their best to raise their children well. They are trying their best, but they are not being given the help they need. First Nations children are more likely to suffer from self harm, suicidal thoughts, attachment issues, physical and mental health issues, and struggles in school. 11% of them live in unsafe housing (compared to 4% of non-Indigenous children). And families are more likely to struggle to pay for transportation, phone bills, utilities, food, and other necessities. And instead of being given the services and help they need, they get their children taken away because of these issues that aren't properly treated and out of their control.

So first of all, it's clear that services for First Nations people in Ontario - both on and off reserve but especially on reserves - need to be greatly expanded and improved if we are to succeed at keeping every child with their family who loves them. But child and family services (CFS) specifically needs to be able to give families the help they need in order to stay together and properly care for their children. Child and family services (CFS) should be given the resources, funding, capacity building, and support needed to deliver prevention services that help children get their needs met while keeping families together.

Currently, CFS does not have the funding, tools, and capacity to do so. In Ontario, the federal government provides money to the provincial government to pay for child and family services on reserves. On reserves, children are receiving really unequal CFS compared to off reserve. Off reserve, the system is still not enough to meet children's needs, because Indigenous children and families usually have much higher needs due to the historic and ongoing genocide and the racism and discrimination found throughout all parts of society. Child and family services off reserve are not culturally appropriate for First Nations children as well. All CFS agencies in Ontario are governed by the same laws despite serving different communities with different situations, needs, and cultures.

In 2016, the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal ruled that Canada was discriminating against First Nations children when it comes to child and family services. Canada has still not stopped the discrimination. However, there have been some negotiations between Canada and the First Nations parties that sued them. Originally, the Chiefs of Ontario and Nishnawbe Aski Nation were part of the many First Nations groups involved in the creation of a system for national reform. However, since the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal could only rule about on-reserve CFS delivery, these two groups broke off to create the draft Ontario Final Agreement with the government of Canada. This agreement, if it is approved by the Tribunal, will govern child and family services for First Nations people in Ontario. It could also be used as a base to make the national final agreement, which is what the government of Canada wants to do.

However, there are a lot of major problems with the draft Ontario Final Agreement. First of all, many First Nations communities and nations in Ontario were not consulted or involved in the creation of this Agreement, and they did not have their concerns taken seriously. According to two Ontario First Nations nations, the Ontario Final Agreement does not provide lasting reform, it fails to address discrimination and funding inequalities within First Nations child and family services, it overlooks the challenges involved in delivering services to remote communities, and it was developed without meaningful engagement. Experts agree that this Agreement fails to create adequate accountability measures for Canada, and many critical elements are unable to permanently stop discrimination.

Another major problem with the Ontario Final Agreement is that it will get rid of the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal's orders and jurisdiction when it comes to Ontario. This is a very dangerous thing since the Tribunal's orders are necessary to create a permanent end to the discrimination, and the Tribunal needs to maintain jurisdiction until they are sure that the discrimination has ended for good. Overriding their orders and jurisdiction would allow the government of Canada to escape accountability. The Canadian Human Rights Tribunal has been an incredibly valuable and necessary partner in creating a better situation for First Nations children.

It is especially dangerous, therefore, that Canada wants to apply the Ontario Final Agreement to the rest of Canada.

And another horrific thing that the Canadian government is doing is trying to pressure the Tribunal to accept the draft Ontario Final Agreement by withholding funding to child and family services agencies. They are withholding money that these underfunded agencies need in order to help families meet their real needs and keep families together. And they hope that this will pressure the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal to accept the inadequate and ineffective draft Ontario Final Agreement, which would harm generations of children.

Because of all these problems, many nations, confederacies, Indigenous rights groups, and child and family service agencies in Ontario and all over Canada want interested party status in the legal process of the negotiations. Most of them deserve it due to the fact that they and their people will be affected by these negotiations either directly or indirectly.

Ultimately, an actually good Final Agreement for Ontario can be reached. We just need to start fresh with new negotiations and ensure that all Ontario First Nations communities are involved in the negation process, with their opinions and desires being incorporated.

——— Jordan's Principle———


Jordan River Anderson was a child born to the Norway House Cree Nation who had a complex set of medical conditions and disabilities. He spent years in the hospital while the provincial government and federal government fought over who should give him care. The province wanted the federal government to fund it and the federal government wanted the province to fund it. Eventually, Jordan River Anderson got more sick died at the age of five, without having received the care he needed.

Jordan's Principle, named after that little boy who would've been the same age as I am today if he'd lived, states that First Nations children should be given any help they need in order to experience equal outcomes to other children. The federal and provincial governments/territorial governments aren't allowed to delay or deny services by fighting about who should pay. The child should receive what they need first, and any disputes can be worked out later.

First Nations communities face much higher rates of poverty, mental illness, and trauma than non-Indigenous communities. This is because of the historical and contemporary racism and discrimination baked into basically every part of society, and because of the current and historical genocide that Indigenous people face. This is also because the social services on reserves - such as education, healthcare, housing, financial aid, childcare, etc - are very underfunded compared to social services off reserve, and even off reserves, the social services Indigenous people get are not culturally apt and not adequate for their more complex needs. Because of the lack of general services and the greater need, many families rely on Jordan's Principle to help them access things that help their children, that they aren't able to access otherwise.

The problem is, Canada is applying Jordan's Principle in a really narrow way and a lot of the children who should be getting the necessary help that they need to achieve equal outcomes to non-Indigenous children don't get said help. The Canadian Human Rights Tribunal ruled in 2016 that Canada was discriminating against First Nations children by applying Jordan's Principle in a really narrow and inadequate way. Since that ruling, Canada has made improvements, leading to many people getting life-altering or even life-saving help, but Canada is still interpreting Jordan's Principle in an overly narrow way, leading many people to not get the help they need.

There are also many other ways that Canada is making it so that children don't get the Jordan's Principle help they need, such as making the system too burdening and confusing for parents and having long delays in service approvals and reapprovals.

There was a recent change in policy in Indigenous Services Canada (ISC), which they are calling a new bulletin. This new bulletin was made without consulting with First Nations communities. They narrowed the scope of products, services, and supports that people are allowed to have. The services no longer funded include:

-Housing services or renovations, including making housing safer, making housing more accessible for children and caregivers with disabilities, mould removal, and more

-Childcare

-Respite care

-Clothing, including winter clothing for the cold Canadian winters

-Furniture

-Vehicles that are often necessary to get to work, school, doctor's appointments, therapy, etc in remote communities, rural communities, and communities with inadequate public transit

-School-related requests such as tutoring for children who are falling behind or stationeries that children need to do basic schoolwork

-Salaries and service fees required for running group requests such as group therapy, cultural programs, classes teaching life skills, etc

-Help for disabled people such as mobility aids, wheelchair ramps, long term disability care, speech therapy, occupational therapy, etc

-Assessments and screenings for health conditions and disabilities

-Transportation to healthcare, mental healthcare, disability support, and other appointments

-Addiction services, mental healthcare, traditional healing

-Medical supplies and equipment such as medicine, needles, etc

-Healthcare for children in out of home care

-Social work

-Cultural and land-based activities

-Assistive technology that is required for disabled students to reach their full potential at school

-Assessments on what school-related problems children might be having and how to help

As you can see, all of these services are really vital and necessary for children to thrive and have equal opportunities. Indigenous Services Canada makes it so that families themselves have to prove that the services they're asking for are needed for substantive equality (aka equal outcomes). This is process is burdensome, confusing, and difficult to navigate for families, leading to many children not getting the help they need. This process is also burdensome to professionals, who often do not have the time to do it. Additionally, the onus is on families to prove that there are no other services that can meet their needs, which is burdensome, confusing, and not possible for many families. What should be happening is that families should only need one document from a related professional or elder to have their needs met. This document would be enough to prove that the needs are legitimate.

Programs and services that are already in place for children and families, that are being funded by Jordan's Principle, would lose funding due to this bulletin. These programs help people heal their trauma, keep themselves and their loved ones healthy, connect to their land and culture, have support for their disabilities, learn important life skills, and so many other things.

Group programs are especially negatively impacted by Indigenous Services Canada's new bulletin. In addition to not getting funding for cultural and land-based programs, group requests now need the name and details of each child participating. This makes them less flexible, since new children who need the program won't be able to join later. It also creates undue burden on the people running the programs.

There will also be no more funding given for building or purchasing buildings for service delivery under the new bulletin. This is a problem since services such as different types of therapy, education, health clinics, and more need buildings to deliver the vital services they provide.

What might be the most unfair though is that the old requests that were made before the policy went into effect, which have not been approved yet, will now not be approved under the new policy.

The government of Canada said that Jordan's Principle was being misused but there is no evidence for that. The required letter from an appropriate professional or elder makes it so that misuse cannot happen anyways. The Canadian Human Rights Tribunal, which is a panel of human rights experts who are among the best informed on this topic, says that Canada must assume that each request is in line with substantive equality. The new policy is clearly apathetic towards substantive equality. It assumes that services for children and families already exist without having to access Jordan's Principle, which is simply not true. And in the rare cases where services do already exist, people are not getting any help to be connected to those services. The behaviour on the part of Indigenous Services Canada is disrespectful and dangerous.

In addition to denying services, the delay in getting services is also horrible. Long backlogs and delays mean that sometimes people don't get services for a long while, and sometimes communities have to pay out of pocket for services, which they often don't get reimbursement for. This means that communities have to redirect funding that would go to other important projects.

Urgent individual requests should be approved within 12 hours, and urgent group requests should be approved within 48 hours, according to the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal. Urgent requests are cases where there is a risk of death or physical harm, risk of a child being taken to out of home care, children or caregivers fleeing domestic violence, children without basic necessities, or children needing end of life care. As you can see, urgent requests need to be approved and services delivered quickly, or else children are at serious risk. However, there are long delays in fulfilling many of these requests. As of March 2025, only 16% of individual urgent requests and 0% of group urgent requests were answered in a timely manner.

In May of 2025 there was a backlog of 135 000 requests that had not even been opened or looked at. By October of the same year the backlog had increased to 140 000 requests.

In addition, there are serious issues with the national and regional Jordan's Principle call lines, making it harder for families to navigate the process and make requests for their children.

The structure, organization, and coordination of the Jordan's Principle system are inadequate. The framework of how Jordan's Principle will be delivered is badly planned, and there are gaps in Indigenous Services Canada's system. The federal rollout, funding, and infrastructure of Jordan's Principle is uncoordinated, undefined, and insufficiently documented, which makes the process inefficient, unreliable, and difficult to improve.

Non-urgent requests need to be approved in reasonable timeframes too, since the children do need the service and shouldn't be kept waiting. The Canadian Human Rights Tribunal said that non urgent individual requests should be met within 48 hours, and non urgent group requests should be met within seven days. These timeframes are also being ignored in many cases.

These problems can be fixed though. We can and need to do long term reform of Jordan's Principle. The long term reform must uphold the sacredness of children. It must be transparent and accountable. And it must have First Nations communities and especially young people as the ultimate decision makers leading and guiding the system. First Nations, Jordan's Principle experts, elders, youth, the Jordan's Principle Operations Committee, and regional experts should be incorporated into and play key roles in the negotiations for long term reform. The final agreement must be for the purpose of holding Canada accountable to stop and prevent discrimination and promote inter generational equity, transparency, and inclusion.

The new Jordan's Principle system we need to create must be transparent and accountable to First Nations communities. There needs to be a Dispute Resolution Tribunal that has real independence, real power, and real effectiveness to stop any discrimination that occurs. The current dispute resolution system is not adequate to fulfill this task.

The new system needs to ensure that it is meeting the unique needs of each community and including each community's perspectives, opinions, and desires.

The funding for Jordan's Principle needs to not have a set limit, but rather take care of the needs of the children who need it. Funding structures must be upwardly adjustable (aka the funding can be increased) to properly fulfill all the needs. The funding must be predictable, stable, sustainable, needs based, unconditional, culturally appropriate, and for the purpose of substantive equality. There needs to be money to build the necessary physical infrastructure. If Canada is letting First Nations provide services, they need to ensure they have the funding they need to successfully do so. Not funding this legal obligation properly could lead to children ending up in foster care due to their parents not having the help they need to fulfill the child's needs, which is a human right abuse we need to avoid

There are federal-provincial and federal-territorial agreements that are involved in Jordan's Principle provision, because they help provide certain services to children and families. These federal-provincial/territorial agreements need to be fully disclosed during negotiations for a new system so that First Nations communities can improve on them and know exactly what they're agreeing to.

There needs to be improved data collection so that we can see the gaps in data and see what the outcomes are for children and families. In order to get data and figure out best practices, there should be a First Nations technical secretariat for each region and province/territory, who will gather and analyze data and disseminate information to communities, professionals, and leaders. During negotiations, communities need funding to fund independent technical and legal advice so that they can fully know what they're agreeing to.

Each family needs to have a fair chance in the system. There should be an ombudsperson that can represent families and children, and legal support for families and children who have been wronged. There needs to be a tribunal to arbitrate on issues children might be having with the system and to enforce the laws and agreements that are in place.

The Canadian Human Rights Tribunal, which is the legal body that determined that Canada is doing discrimination and that has been fighting to make the discrimination stop, needs to maintain jurisdiction over Jordan's Principle until the reforms are fully implemented and there is no chance of any discrimination reoccurring.

——— Services———

In Canada most of us get many services from the government that help us a lot in life. Public education and universal healthcare are lifesavers that everyone relies on to live healthy, happy, well-functioning lives. We also have access to many services that help us when we are struggling. Things like childcare, financial aid, social housing, job training, employment insurance, help buying medicine, and more help us when we're in financial trouble, a thing that can happen to anyone. These services are usually funded by the provinces and territories, and are available to people who don't live on reserves (special land set aside for First Nations people). (All land should belong to the land but that's beside the point.)

Now, it is definitely true that the services available to people off reserve are very inadequate, and a lot of people end up trapped in poverty even with these services. However, a lot of people are lucky enough to be able to overcome poverty with the help and the support they get.

On reserves, however, services are paid for by the federal government. And the funding is terrible. The structures and organization of the government departments involved in on reserve service provision is terrible. And this leads to there being not nearly as many services for people on reserves as there are for people off reserve. And the services that do exist are of much worse quality. For example, there aren't enough evidence-based, culturally appropriate addiction treatment programs. This service inequality is part of what is leading to widespread poverty on reserves.

In addition to being badly funded, services are hard to navigate, and the process to get the services you need is burdensome and confusing. This leads to many people not being able to access services even if those services exist. For example, oftentimes people need to go to many different places and programs to get one single need met. This leads to even more people not having their needs met.

Getting services for children or families with complex needs is even harder. There are many conditions and disabilities that can lead to having needs in a variety of different areas. For example, a child with autism might struggle in school, and need help for that. They might also be nonverbal, and need communicative devices to help them advocate for themselves. They might also be facing emotional struggles due to the reality of being a disabled person in a world that is not suitable for disabled people, and might need some mental health therapy for that. It would be difficult to get services for all of these things if the services weren't integrated and coordinated together. And, especially on reserves, the services aren't integrated and coordinated together. Things like childhood trauma also affect many parts of life and health, and the system is creating more and more traumatized children.

A lot of services have rigid inclusion requirements that leave many people out, despite the fact that those people need the services. For example, to get help and therapy for people with disabilities or mental illnesses, you usually need an official diagnosis. Diagnoses are unavailable for many families due to lack of access to diagnostic services. Even when diagnostic services exist, they are confusing and difficult to navigate and access, and impossibly overburdening to have access to for most families.

Services that do exist often don't account for and work with each person, child, and family's unique circumstances. These circumstances include work hours, ability to get transportation, multiple other needs that make it so you can't access a service, and many other things. If you need to access a doctor's appointment, but it conflicts with your work schedule, or you don't have transportation to get to it, or you have children and no one to take care of them while you're gone, you can't access that doctor's appointment.

Children with unmet needs often end up in foster care, which is a human rights abuse and a source of trauma. Their families love them and want to take care of them but can't due to not being able to access services. This causes lifelong trauma for the children and their families. Living in poverty with unmet needs and a lack of good healthcare and education also causes lifelong trauma. People who don't have their needs met, and don't have their family's needs met, sometimes have to resort to crime out of desperation and due to not seeing any other option. They can get arrested due to that. This also causes lifelong trauma for them and their loved ones. Giving people the services they need prevents homelessness, addiction, and many other problems.

The Canadian government is doing nothing to change, improve, or increase services on reserves. The Spirit Bear Plan aims to improve services on reserves so that the needs of the people can be met. The Canadian government needs to implement the Spirit Bear Plan and to follow it. The Plan is as follows:

"Spirit Bear calls on:

CANADA to immediately comply with all rulings by the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal ordering it to immediately cease its discriminatory funding of First Nations child and family services. The order further requires Canada to fully and properly implement Jordan's Principle (www.jordansprinciple.ca).

PARLIAMENT to ask the Parliamentary Budget Officer to publicly cost out the shortfalls in all federally funded public services provided to First Nations children, youth and families (education, health, water, child welfare, etc.) and propose solutions to fix it.

GOVERNMENT to consult with First Nations to co-create a holistic Spirit Bear Plan to end all of the inequalities (with dates and confirmed investments) in a short period of time sensitive to children's best interests, development and distinct community needs.

GOVERNMENT DEPARTMENTS providing services to First Nations children and families to undergo a thorough and independent 360° evaluation to identify any ongoing discriminatory ideologies, policies or practices and address them. These evaluations must be publicly available.

ALL PUBLIC SERVANTS including those at a senior level, to receive mandatory training to identify and address government ideology, policies and practices that fetter the implementation of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission's Calls to Action." (First Nations Child and Family Caring Society).

Fixing the social service situation on reserves is very important. However, it will not be enough to fix the Indigenous rights situation across the country. A lot of First Nations people and other Indigenous people live off reserve. And the services they receive are inadequate as well. First of all, the need in First Nations and other Indigenous communities is higher, no matter where the people are. This is because of the historical and ongoing racism, discrimination, and genocide that is happening in Canada against Indigenous people. This racism and discrimination is baked into every part of the economy, the job market, education, and society. Because of the higher needs and the higher trauma in these communities, the social services that are available off reserve are often not enough to meet people's needs. The services are also not culturally appropriate.

Services off reserves need to be improved as well. They need more funding, and they need to be culturally appropriate for the people accessing them. Services for children who are struggling is definitely very good, but there needs to be services for their siblings and families too, since they are also affected by the family situation caused by a family member who is struggling. The same thing applies when a parent is struggling. A lot of times people need long term help in order to create a better situation for their family, and they need to be given that.

And especially, people with disabilities, especially children, often do not get the services they need. The system treats people with disabilities as problems to be solved rather than people and individuals who deserve human rights and dignity. And families with disabled members are often forced to fend for themselves, which should definitely be changed.

——— Indigenous Services Canada Reform———

Indigenous Services Canada (ISC) is the Canadian government department that funds services for many Indigenous people. In addition to funding many services, they also directly provide many services. People living on reserves get the funding for their social services and some social service provision from Indigenous Services Canada (ISC). The department also provides and provisions Jordan's Principle services annd other services to Indigenous people in all parts of the country.

There are many problems with this department. They underfund everything, they are inefficient and badly organized, and they are racist and discriminatory. They try their best to provide as few services as possible, to make those services as inadequate and underfunded as possible, and to make it as difficult and confusing as possible to provide services. This causes a lot of trauma and inequality for Indigenous people.

There are many programming, service, oversight, and accountability issues in ISC that need to be changed and reformed. The Expert Advisory Committee, which is an independent body accountable to Indigenous people and made up of experts in many relevant fields, is trying to reform Indigenous Services Canada. In order to do that, they need to have the power to demand, enforce, and oversee the necessary changes. As it stands now, ISC hasn't been doing ongoing discussions with the Expert Advisory Committee and is generally uncooperative. For example, the Expert Advisory Committee is not being given enough time to reflect on and talk about the information ISC gives them.

The "old mindset" of ISC, which is paternalistic and racist, can be changed in many ways. First of all, they need to cooperate with the Expert Advisory Committee in order to implement the necessary reforms. First Nations communities, youth, and elders need to play a key role in the reform process. Control and provision of services should go to Indigenous partners. If a service is being given to Indigenous people, the Indigenous communities being served should also be the ones leading and controlling the service. This doesn't change the fact though, that ISC needs to adequately fund the service. As well, the non-discrimination courses being given to employees are not cohesive or adequate to prevent discrimination, and that needs to be changed. They need better training, policies, executive responsibilities, staff performance measures, and many other things.

One of the major problems is that ISC is operating on an unsustainable crisis-based model. They don't give help to people or allow others to give help to people until things get so bad that a crisis is already happening. Then they focus on (badly) managing the crisis. If they allowed people to provide services and help that prevents crises from happening in the first place, that would lead to much better and more sustainable outcomes for the population. One of the ways they can start to do this is by funding more healing centres, of which there are currently not nearly enough. This would help people start healing their trauma and mental health so that they can create more stable, less traumatic lives for themselves.

There needs to be good accountability measures for staff and the whole department. There needs to be a critical incidence reporting system, which reports and deals with racism and discrimination from the staff, from the system and organization of ISC, and from any policies, regulations, etc in place in the department. The Expert Advisory Committee needs to monitor and oversee this mechanism so that they can ensure that it is effectively dealing with discrimination. Acts of discrimination done by staff need to be monitored to understand and resolve why exactly the person did this, which is not happening now. ISC needs its own Human Resources department to deal with issues that arise with the staff, and this Human Resources department needs to follow an Indigenous organization model rather than a Western one. Finally, youth advocacy, empowerment, and care organizations such as the Assembly of Seven Generations need to be incorporated into the third party evaluation of ISC.

And there definitely needs to be an Indigenous-led joint governance body that governs ISC and has the authority to give legally-binding orders. This will ensure that the organization is accountable to the Indigenous people they are supposed to be serving.

——— Education———


So every child in existence has a right to a high-quality education, so that they can have good cognitive health and build a good future for themselves, their families, their communities, and the world. A good quality education is a basic, fundamental human right that every child, teenager, and person equally holds.

In order to give children their right to education, simply giving them schools is not enough. The schools need to be good quality schools that offer learning environments that support children to thrive.

There are many items a school needs in order to teach their children well. Schools need textbooks and library books. All kinds of different stationery. Computers to teach children computer literacy. Printers and ink and paper to print worksheets, information packages, and tests. Glassware, equipment, and reagents for science labs. Whiteboards (or chalkboards) with markers (or chalk). Projectors. Sports equipment. All kinds of art supplies. Musical instruments. Books for the classroom and to read out loud. Base ten blocks, geometrical shapes, and other tools to learn math with. Equipment to do science experiments in class. Calendars and clocks to learn about time. Calculators. Geometry sets. First aid kits and AEDs. Fire extinguishers. Smoke detectors. The list goes on and on and on.

Schools also need physical infrastructure in order to create a good learning environment. They need well-insulated walls, as well as heating for the cold Canadian winters and air conditioning for the increasingly dangerous summers. This is necessary to create a healthy, safe, and comfortable environment where students can focus on their learning. There needs to be sanitary and hygienic washrooms so that the school isn't spreading disease and the children have dignity. There needs to be good ventilation systems so that the children are safe and healthy.

There are many compartments that schools need. There needs to be a library in the school so that children can discover and nurture a love of reading, learn, and use their imaginations to become lifelong learners. There needs to be a gym so that children can learn about and do sports and exercise, keeping their bodies healthy and learning how to do so in the future. For schools with younger students there needs to be a field for the children to play and get their energy out so that they can focus and learn. For schools with older students there needs to be at least one science lab so they can learn how to do higher level experiments. There should be an adequate number of therapy rooms for children to get therapy if they need it, so that they can be in a good mental state and have the energy and focus for learning. There needs to be enough sensory rooms for neurodivergent children or any children to calm down if they need to. Nurse rooms for children needing serious first aid. Etcetera.

There needs to be enough funding for school staff as well. There needs to be enough teachers for the students. There should be at least one teacher for every twenty students, ideally there should be two. There should be educational assistants to help children who are neurodivergent or struggling. There should be enough janitors to keep the school hygienic and sanitary. There should be enough school counsellors and therapists to help kids going through tough times so that they have more energy and mental stability and can learn better. Nurses to deal with serious medical issues that might unexpectedly arise. Lunch supervisors for younger grades. The list goes on.

There also needs to be enough funding for other things, such as field trips, clubs, after school events, sports teams, and stuff like that. Field trips are necessary to help children learn more about the world and get excited in their learning. Clubs and sports teams help children explore their interests and develop different skill sets. School events build school spirit and bring the community together.

As you can see, all of these things need money. A school can be run by the nicest people who are trying their very best and going above and beyond every day. However, if the school lacks funding, no amount of hard work on the part of the teachers can make up for that lack of funding. And without funding, children don't get a high quality education that is adequate and lets them learn and grow to their full potential.

Many First Nations people live on reserves. Schools on reserves are funded by the federal government rather than the provincial governments, and get much less funding per student than schools off reserve do. This means that schools on reserve cannot deliver an equal quality of education compared to schools off reserve, which is a great injustice.

Not only that, but very many on reserve schools don't get nearly enough funding and therefore cannot give a decent quality of education to their students. They can't provide a safe, comfortable, and appropriate learning environment for students. The system is setting these kids up to fail.

Schools on reserves, which primarily serve First Nations children, also have more needs than schools off reserve do. Because of historical and contemporary racism, discrimination, and genocide, there is a lot more mental illness and poverty in First Nations communities. That means that a lot of children don't have enough nutritious food at home, they can't afford school supplies, and they don't have parents who can help them with their homework (due to conflicting work schedules, mental illness, the parents not having adequate education themselves, etc). There are also many more children with physical and mental health issues that need to be accommodated for in school. This means that schools on reserves actually need more funding per student than schools off reserve do, in order to give an equal education to their students, but they're getting less funding instead

On top of that, schools on reserves also need to teach children the languages and cultures of their communities. Something that they cannot do without funding.

——— Youth Programs———

There are several Indigenous youth organizations, such as the Assembly of Seven Generations, that are doing much vital work towards Truth and Reconciliation. Truth and Reconciliation is the process of creating a fair and equal society where Indigenous and non-Indigenous people can live with happiness and prosperity. The Truth and Reconciliation Commission, a team of experts who did a lot of intense research on how to make this vision a reality, published their Calls to Action, and one of the Calls to Action was for Canada to start adequately funding Indigenous youth groups. They explained that the voices of young people must guide reconciliation and bring us to a better future.

So what do these groups do? They help and support young Indigenous people to advocate for themselves and their communities to decision makers. They help young people to be involved in political, economic, and social decisions that affect them and their communities. They gather and share research about what young people want and need. On top of that, they create and maintain many programs, camps, classes, networks, etc that help young people learn their Indigenous cultures and that promote and provide cultural healing. They also provide resources, funding, services, and support for youth in crises, poverty, trauma, homelessness, and other struggles.

All of this is really important because Canada often tokenizes and undervalues the voices of Indigenous youth when it comes to decision making. Which of course leads to decisions that do not meet the needs of young people and aren't appropriate for them. Young people often feel like the services that do exist are not for them. And the services they need are often not available or accessible. This is made worse by the fact that many non-Indigenous organizations claim that they provide many services for Indigenous youth when they in fact do not. Government research involving Indigenous youth is also often unethical, with the young people not being paid for the large amount of time and effort they put into projects and with them not being contacted after the research is done so that they can know what happened with the research.

While these organizations are doing great work, they do not have the funding to do as much as they should be and want to be doing. The funding models for Indigenous youth organizations are made without consultation and oversight from the youth themselves. And the current system, where you have to apply for a grant for each specific project, is very time consuming, confusing, hard to navigate, unreliable, and does not provide nearly enough funding.

If the funding system was better, these organizations could do much more research and advocacy, provide many more services, and devote their time and energy to their main goals.

What they need is enough guaranteed, reliable funding. They need guaranteed core funding which is enough to keep their organization running. They also need adequate multi-year funding for the programs, services, research, and advocacy they do. This funding needs to be plentiful, reliable, predictable, and easy to access. There needs to be transparency and accountability for how the government is funding things. And young Indigenous people need to be empowered to fight for their rights and heal their people.

——— Thank You!———

Thank you for taking the time to read this. On my profile on this site I have a letter you can use either as a template or as inspiration to write a letter of your own. Please send your letter to the Canadian government, and please share this information package. Also, check out the First Nations Child and Family Caring Society, because they do so much awesome work!