Human Resources committee  Thank you, Member, for your question. You may know that in many of the provinces and territories they've taken the step of providing what they call post-adoption supports for parents. Those are provided because some of the children who are most in need of permanent homes and fa

Human Resources committee  Well, the federal government, of course, through immigration policy and other factors, has a key role in international adoption. I'd like to see the federal government make it mandatory that if a child from an international country is indigenous, his or her indigenous group is do

Human Resources committee  Thank you very much, Member. The issue of poverty has been well documented in child welfare research as a leading driver of all children into child welfare. It is one of the best predictors. Although there are families such as yours that were successful, good public policy is no

Human Resources committee  Thank you for that question. We know from the Auditor General that there are shortfalls in education and we know from the research on Jordan's Principle that there are problems with health. What I am here to talk about specifically is that we have to pay attention to all of t

Human Resources committee  Thank you, Member, for your question. It's important to think about what neglect is. Too often as Canadians we think neglect is a parent not doing his or her job properly. But when you look at the poverty and the poor housing, particularly for first nations, you see that those a

Human Resources committee  This program is a pilot funded by the Alberta government. Sadly, there have been times when I've gone to this amazing program and they've literally wondered if they would have to close the doors the next day, if this would be the last adoption ceremony for these children. It's re

Human Resources committee  Thank you very much, Monsieur Lessard, for your question. In my view, it's very simple. The federal government on reserve has a responsibility to adequately and flexibly fund children and family services, be they for adoption or child welfare, to an equitable and culturally bas

Human Resources committee  Thank you. The federal government has a responsibility to adequately fund and support first-nations-developed customary adoption programs. At this point, they're not doing it in any kind of systematic fashion, nor are they developing any strategy in partnership with first nation

Human Resources committee  Thank you, Madam Chair. Good morning, committee members. Today is an opportunity for you to make a difference in the lives of thousands of first nations children. So often Canadians get so overwhelmed by the disadvantage experienced by first nations, Métis, and Inuit children

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  Thank you very much, honourable chair and honourable members.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  The issue with pilot projects is that it can work if you've already dealt with the equity question, but it shouldn't be the choice that we are going to have pilot projects instead of providing equitable child welfare funding. One of the things we were very clear about when we d

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  I can probably get that to you. The 22% less from 2000 was per-child expenditure. The author of that report, from Blue Quills Consulting, was very clear that it was on a per-child basis that it was less. When we look at that $109 million and talk about the $62 million, for examp

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  Right. What we're able to do already is to say that these services are currently being delivered under the formula--for example, the Department of Indian and Northern Affairs provides a lot of money to remove kids from their homes--so it's not only a question of how much is goin

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  My experience is really informed by my own lived experience and the great honour that I have working with first nations children and families and the communities that serve them. If I can humbly suggest, Canada funds some programs that it rolls out nationally, but the one thing

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  We've actually included a number of broad, sweeping recommendations, along with the increments in funding. One is to try to modify spending authority so that there can be cross-ministerial collaboration and cross-disciplinary collaboration. Instead of having money coming into fir