Child welfare

Legacy
Child welfare
1. We call upon the federal, provincial, territorial, and
Aboriginal governments to commit to reducing the
number of Aboriginal children in care by:
i. Monitoring and assessing neglect investigations.
ii. Providing adequate resources to enable Aboriginal
communities and child-welfare organizations to
keep Aboriginal families together where it is safe to
do so, and to keep children in culturally appropriate
environments, regardless of where they reside.
iii. Ensuring that social workers and others who
conduct child-welfare investigations are properly
educated and trained about the history and impacts
of residential schools.
iv. Ensuring that social workers and others who
conduct child-welfare investigations are properly
educated and trained about the potential for
Aboriginal communities and families to provide
more appropriate solutions to family healing.
v. Requiring that all child-welfare decision makers
consider the impact of the residential school
experience on children and their caregivers.
2. We call upon the federal government, in collaboration
with the provinces and territories, to prepare and
publish annual reports on the number of Aboriginal
children (First Nations, Inuit, and Métis) who are in
care, compared with non-Aboriginal children, as well
as the reasons for apprehension, the total spending on
preventive and care services by child-welfare agencies,
and the effectiveness of various interventions.
3. We call upon all levels of government to fully implement
Jordan’s Principle.
4. We call upon the federal government to enact Aboriginal
child-welfare legislation that establishes national
standards for Aboriginal child apprehension and
custody cases and includes principles that:
i. Affirm the right of Aboriginal governments to
establish and maintain their own child-welfare
agencies.
ii. Require all child-welfare agencies and courts to take
the residential school legacy into account in their
decision making.
iii. Establish, as an important priority, a requirement
that placements of Aboriginal children into
temporary and permanent care be culturally
appropriate.
5. We call upon the federal, provincial, territorial,
and Aboriginal governments to develop culturally
appropriate parenting programs for Aboriginal families.
Education
6. We call upon the Government of Canada to repeal
Section 43 of the Criminal Code of Canada.
7. We call upon the federal government to develop
with Aboriginal groups a joint strategy to eliminate 2 | Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada
educational and employment gaps between Aboriginal
and non-Aboriginal Canadians.
8. We call upon the federal government to eliminate the
discrepancy in federal education funding for First
Nations children being educated on reserves and those
First Nations children being educated off reserves.
9. We call upon the federal government to prepare and
publish annual reports comparing funding for the
education of First Nations children on and off reserves,
as well as educational and income attainments of
Aboriginal peoples in Canada compared with nonAboriginal people.
10. We call on the federal government to draft new
Aboriginal education legislation with the full
participation and informed consent of Aboriginal
peoples. The new legislation would include a
commitment to sufficient funding and would
incorporate the following principles:
i. Providing sufficient funding to close identified
educational achievement gaps within one
generation.
ii. Improving education attainment levels and success
rates.
iii. Developing culturally appropriate curricula.
iv. Protecting the right to Aboriginal languages,
including the teaching of Aboriginal languages as
credit courses.
v. Enabling parental and community responsibility,
control, and accountability, similar to what parents
enjoy in public school systems.
vi. Enabling parents to fully participate in the education
of their children.
vii. Respecting and honouring Treaty relationships.
11. We call upon the federal government to provide
adequate funding to end the backlog of First Nations
students seeking a post-secondary education.
12. We call upon the federal, provincial, territorial,
and Aboriginal governments to develop culturally
appropriate early childhood education programs for
Aboriginal families.