The Auditor General, in her review in 2008 of the child and family services program, specifically cited the fact that these transfers from the infrastructure budget, which funds housing, needed to stop, and the department agreed with it. Although it was agreed that the department would stop that practice, it continued, with vigour, and they transferred half a billion dollars out of that budget to try to cover the shortfalls in child welfare, education, and health.
The problem with that, which is what we tendered at the tribunal, is that there are three key drivers to the dramatic overrepresentation of first nations children in child welfare care: poverty, poor housing, and caregiver substance misuse related to multi-generational trauma.
By deepening the housing crisis, you're actually putting children at greater risk. The answer is not to shuffle deck chairs on the Titanic in a department that's completely underfunded. The answer is to ensure adequate funding across all program areas, as the Auditor General recommended back in 2008.