This document discusses issues facing Aboriginal children in Canada, including historical contexts of discrimination and challenges today. It notes that Aboriginal children are overrepresented in child welfare systems and face higher risks like substance abuse, suicide, and poverty due to impacts of the residential school system, lack of culturally-appropriate support services, and jurisdictional disputes between governments over funding responsibilities. The document argues that Canada is not fully upholding the rights of Aboriginal children as outlined in the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child.

1. By Fay Zoccole

2. Chapter 11
Aboriginal Children’s Rights
Is Canada Keeping it’s Promise?
Marilyn Bennett

3.  A young girl will continue to be sexually abused
because substance abuse has taken hold of her
family...
 An baby boy will continue to be neglected
because the only social worker has too many
cases, enough for 10 workers...
 A depressed teen develops a drug problem and
ends up in jail because there is no place for him
to go for help and no to help him stay in school...
 A culture will die slowly and invisibly if we fail to
protect and ensure the rights of our children...

4. Aboriginal People
Canada -Dominion
-Best country to live in -Discrimination
-High life expectancy -Displacement
-High standard of living -Discrimination
-Low level of internal conflict -Extreme Poverty
-High school enrolment -Colonization
-Assimilation

5. Today we will discuss:
•Which social problems?
•Historical Context
•Key Issues for Aboriginal Children and Families
•High suicide rates for Aboriginal People
•The UN Convention on the Rights of the Child
•The erosion of Children’s rights through the
Indian Act
•Bill C-31
•Effects of Poverty
•Conclusion

6. What kind of social problems would you have?

7. 1. Residential School System
• Reject language, heritage and families
• Parents forgot how to parent responsibly
2. Child and Welfare Services
3. Social manifestations
4. Violation of human rights

8.  120 First Nation child welfare agencies
 Challenge: Adapt services that reflect holistic,
interdependent, and communal rights framework
of the cultural communities
 Concepts of “child removal” or apprehensions are
foreign due to Communal child rearing during
times of stress
 Western System of child care removal was only to
be used to respond to isolated incidents of child
maltreatment.

9.  25,000 Aboriginal children are in the child
welfare: 3x more then those who attended
residential school
 71.5% of these children have special needs
 3/4s of these children become permanent
wards and never go home

10.  Sara’s mom is a single mother.
 Sara is in grade 2. She was held back a couple
years because of her maturity.
 So far, Sara has attended school and has a
paraprofessional to help her in school to get
around.
 There are no Spec. Ed. at Sara’s school.
 The teacher does not make any adaptations for
Sara’s assignments. She gets the same work that
everybody else gets.
 What would you do if you were Sara’s mom and
you living on the reserve without any resources?

11.  Sara’s Aunt and Uncle moved to Toronto.
 Sara’s mom made arrangements for the Aunt and
Uncle to foster Sara in Toronto.
 Sara’s aunt and uncle have help her adjust and live in
the city.
 Sara attends a Special Education for the Blind in
Toronto and is getting her needs met.
 Sara’s mom makes the effort to call her and plans to
visit her every 4 months at least.

12.  The impact of historical
policies and the need for
Aboriginal solutions are
also in high suicide rates
among First Nation youth.
 Pikangikum:
 Weagamow/North
Caribou:

13.  From the Reserve
 Kaila is 10 months old
 Recommended by doctors that he have a liver
transplant.
 Parents do not agree due to traditional beliefs
 Does “Child and Family Services” have the right
apprehend Kaila and over-ride parent’s original
decision to reject transplant?

14.  From a First Nation Community in Saskatchewan
 Kaila is 10 months old
 Parents bring him to hospital because of bruising on his skin
 Pediatric gastroenterologist informed the parents that their son’s only chance of survival would be to
receive a liver transplant. 70%-75% chance of survival in the first year. Post-transplant, dropping to
60-65% after 5 years. The parents were a well-informed.
 Parents were articulate and understood the potential benefits and risks of their son undergoing a
transplant (assuming an organ became available).
 After much soul searching, the parents decided to forgo the transplant specifically due to cultural
beliefs.
 Also the parents had serious concerns about the potential long-term effects of the immunosuppressive
drugs on their child and took the view that his body would be “like a war zone” for the rest of his life.
 The pediatric gastroenterologist consulted by the parents believed that the parents’ decision to deny
their son the possibility of a liver transplant was unreasonable. He notified the local child welfare
agency, and the department of social services petitioned the court to temporarily apprehend the child so
that consent could be obtained for a transplant.
 The parents took their two children and fled the jurisdiction until the matter could be settled in court.
 A judge heard testimony from both the parents of K’aila as well as several specialist physicians. Despite
the initial
 physician’s determination that a liver transplant was in the child’s best interest, all expert witnesses did
not support this.
 Other testifying physicians stated that they could not fault the decision of the parents, given the
uncertain course of the surgery as well as the potential severe and long-term effects of the necessary
immunosuppressive drugs.
 The judge denied the petition of the social services agency, and the parents returned home with their
children. K’aila died peacefully in his mother’s arms 6 weeks after this ruling.

15.  Jordan's Principle is a child first principle to resolve jurisdictional disputes
within, and between governments, regarding payment for government
services provided to First Nations children.
 Under this principle, where a jurisdictional dispute arises between two
government parties (provincial/territorial or federal) or between two
departments or ministries of the same government, regarding payment for
services for a Status Indian child which are otherwise available to other
Canadian children, the government or ministry/department of first contact
must pay for the services without delay or disruption. The paying
government party can then refer the matter to jurisdictional dispute
mechanisms.
 In Canada, there is a lack of clarity between the federal and
provincial/territorial governments around who should pay for government
services for First Nations children even when the services is normally
available to other children.
 Too often the practice was for the governments to deny or delay the child's
receipt of a service(s) pending resolution of the payment dispute.

16.  Jordan's Principle applies to all government services and states that
when a jurisdictional dispute arises, the government of first contact
with the child must fund the service and then resolve the
jurisdictional dispute later.
 Jordan's principle is reflective of the non-discrimination provisions
of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child and
Canadian domestic law that does not allow differential treatment on
the basis of race or ethnic origin.
 Private Members Motion 296 in support of Jordan's Principle was
passed unanimously in the House of Commons on December 12,
2007.
 Some provinces have partially implemented Jordan's Principle in the
area of children with complex medical needs but more work needs
to be done to eliminate the impact of jurisdictional disputes on First
Nations children's access to all government services.

17.  Jordan's Principle was established in response to the death
of 5-year-old Jordan River Anderson, a child from Norway
House First Nation who suffered from Carey Fineman Ziter
Syndrome, a rare muscular disorder that required years of
medical treatment in a Winnipeg hospital.
 After spending the first two years of his life in a hospital,
doctors felt he could return home. However, the federal
and provincial government could not resolve who was
financially responsible for the necessary home care in
order for Jordan to return to his family in his home
community 800 kilometres north of Winnipeg.
 After spending over two years in hospital unnecessarily
while governments argued over who should pay for his at
home care, Jordan died in hospital in 2005.

18.  The CRC provides as a framework to improve, promote, and
protect the basic human rights of all children
1. Non-discrimination which means that states commit
themselves to respect and ensure the rights of all children in
their jurisdiction without discrimination of any kind;
2. The “best interests of the child” which means that the interests
of the child are recognized as paramount and that budgetary
allocations should give priority to children and to the
safekeeping of their rights;
3. Respect for children’s views and for their rights to participate
in all aspects of democratic society which asserts that children
are not passive recipients but active contributors to the
decisions that affect their lives
4. The children’s right to survival and development which claims
the right for children to realize their fullest potential through a
range of strategies, from meeting their health, nutrition, and
education needs to supporting their personal and social
development

19.  Findings indicate that First Nation children
continue to experience unacceptable and
disproportionate levels of risk across all the
identified dimensions and that polices developed
by the government to redress these risks remain
largely unimplemented.
 Canada clearly falls short in its treatment of
Aboriginal children.
 How? Aboriginal peoples continue to live far
below the standard of living of the general
Canadian population. Whether they are living on
or off reserve, Aboriginal children’s living
conditions fall far short of those promise in the
CRC.

20. How do you think the Indian Act oppresses
and discriminates First Nation children?

21.  DEFINES who is and who is not a STATUS
INDIAN and therefore entitled to specific
rights that arise from the historical
relationship between Aboriginal peoples and
Canadian government.
 CREATES divisions between Aboriginal
peoples in and effort to restrict the number
of Aboriginal peoples fro whom Canada will
exercises certain obligations
 DIMINISHES the rights of future generations
of Aboriginal children.

22.  Drawn up in 1985 to try and stop this
discrimination against first Nation women.
Native woman + white men=
Native women lose ALL status rights
*Children did not have status rights
Native men + White women =
White women became status.
*Children had full status rights.

23.  The social economic conditions experienced by
many on-reserve First Nations people are similar
to those experienced by families in developing
countries.
 Pervasive poverty, substandard housing
conditions, widespread alcohol and solvent abuse
involving adults and children, and high suicide
rates among youth are the resultant stark
realities.
Aboriginal families experience an extremely
high rate of hardship. Aboriginal families were
characterized by ...less housing and greater
dependence on social assistance, rates of
alcohol and drug abuse, and being investigated
more often for neglect or emotional
maltreatment

24.  All Aboriginal children continue to suffer
disproportionately from high levels of child
abuse and sexual exploitation and from a a
child welfare system that fails to adequately
protect them through culturally appropriate
services.
 Aboriginal child welfare agencies should be
given the resources and the funding to
ensure that they rights of Aboriginal children
under their care and jurisdiction are upheld
and respected.

25. The END