Cindy Blackstock on the federal government’s case at the Human Rights Tribunal
Cindy Blackstock is the executive director of the First Nations Child and Family Caring Society, which filed a Human Rights complaint in 2007 against the federal government over chronic underfunding of First Nations child welfare programs. As a result, Blackstock believes she’s become a target for the federal government’s lawyers – and its spies. Government agents famously stalked her and her Facebook pages were hacked.
Despite furious efforts to evade the case, successive court decisions forced the federal government into the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal, which began hearing evidence in March 2013. Last March 17, the government began its defence. At the end of that week, the Nation reached Cindy Blackstock to discuss the government’s case.
The Nation: What have been the major events that you’ve seen take place in the Human Rights Tribunal this week?
Cindy Blackstock: I’d say the denial of any wrongdoing on the part of the government. Given 14 volumes of largely their own documents that show [the inequality between funding directed to Aboriginal children in child welfare], I was surprised that it was a flat-out denial.
And then they put their first witness on the stand – a fine lady, I’m sure – but what was surprising to me was the fact that she said they had just discovered in 2012 that First Nations agencies in Canada do their own receiving of child-welfare reports and investigations, and they had not been funding that before. The program has been in place for some 30 years.
We filed this case in 2007. Today, the federal government was asked how long families have to wait to get relief and prevention services. Their answer is, “We don’t know.” But these are little children growing up right now. Since we’ve filed this case, some children who were just born at the time of the filing have had their seventh birthday. And there’s still no benchmark as to when the federal government is going to treat these kids equally.
TN: But if that was 1967, that was after the end of the era of Indian Agents coming to take children from their families.
CB: That’s right. So that same practice was alive and well. Social workers would be serving on the admissions committees of these residential schools and these kids would be coming in by the dozen. And that’s before the 60s Scoop.
Now, they’re being removed and placed in foster care at far higher rates than ever before. We were talking about Saskatchewan this week, and an agency director told me that when he started in 1994, about 57% of the kids in that province’s child welfare system were First Nations. Now it’s well over 85%. We’re seeing it across the country: First Nations children are making up far more of the kids in care, but we have to take the federal government to court in order to treat these children equitably, and to give their families a chance to be able to care for them safely in their communities and their homes.
TN: In light of news about the federal government’s handling of the St. Anne’s Residential School documents, it’s hard not to conclude that the government is either totally incompetent or that they’re trying to cover something up.
CB: I’m very concerned to see the number of court actions against the federal government involving Aboriginal children or those who are now adults. In the case of St. Anne’s, they were found to be withholding documents unlawfully. And of course the Truth and Reconciliation Commission had to take them to court to get them to release documents.
In our case, we were about two months into the hearings when I got an Access to Information disc that included critical evaluations of one of their funding formulas, and it showed significant problems that they had never disclosed. It turned out that they had failed to disclose 100,000 documents.
If the federal government wants to put the interests of First Nations children at the forefront, then I think there are some pretty hard questions about their actions in these legal cases. Why did they engage in six years of delay tactics if they really believe that they did nothing wrong? If I was accused of a crime I didn’t do, I’d be really eager for the hearing to clear my name!
TN: It’s been four days of government defense at this point. What are you feeling?
CB: In my view, I think the case that these kids are being discriminated against has strengthened exponentially over these last four days. What is discouraging is the lack of diligence in terms of making sure within the federal government that they’re actually making the best decisions for children.
When I was testifying, we had a chart showing the number of days that First Nations children had spent in foster care, where the department has paid. Some children just come into care, and they’re through overnight. Others, it’s for many years.
I’m not a utopian thinker. I know some First Nations children cannot grow up with their families safely. But why is it that we’re at a place in this country that a First Nations child is about 12 times more likely to end up in foster care than a non-Aboriginal child, and then within that we actually give those children less money? There’s something wrong with that.