Human Resources Committee on Dec. 7th, 2010

[The Chair (Ms. Candice Hoeppner (Portage—Lisgar, CPC)), Conservative, Candice Bergen]

Good morning, everyone.

I would like to call to order meeting number 38 of the Standing Committee on Human Resources, Skills and Social Development and the Status of Persons with Disabilities.

Committee members, we have some business at the end of the meeting today, so instead of giving a full hour for the first set of witnesses and then cut off the second one, I'll probably do about 50 minutes in the first hour, 50 minutes in the second, and then we can do our committee business.

We're very pleased today to have with us Cindy Blackstock, who is from the First Nations Child and Family Caring Society of Canada. Ms. Blackstock is the executive director.

We're also very happy to have Conrad Saulis. Conrad is the policy director of the National Association of Friendship Centres.

We are really grateful that you are here today. As you know, we are doing a study on the federal supports that are available, and should be available, to adoptive parents. We know aboriginal children and the adoptive process is a very important part of this puzzle, so we're pleased that you're here.

We ask that you each make a presentation of about five to seven minutes. Then we can have some time for questions.

Ms. Blackstock.

[Cindy Blackstock, Executive Director, First Nations Child and Family Caring Society of Canada]

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, and the long-standing nature of those disadvantages, that some wonder if there's anything that can be done. I assure you that there is. It is culturally based equity for all children in the country. It is as simple as that.

One of the first pieces to understand is the reason why adoption, as Madam Chair pointed out, is such a key matter for first nations children. It is because they are overrepresented in the child welfare system, removed from their families at about a rate of six to eight times that of non-aboriginal children, the Auditor General of Canada says in her 2008 report, and the reasons they're removed are not related to abuse; they're related to neglect, linked to poverty, poor housing, and caregiver substance misuse.

Now the good news about that is that those are all things we can do something about. The bad news is that first nations children on reserves, as the Auditor General confirmed in 2008 and repeated expert reports have found going back a decade, receive inequitable child and family services to keep them safely in their family homes.

Many of the members at this table know that Canada is currently subject to a trial before the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal on allegations it is discriminating racially against first nations children and child welfare. We want to have that case heard on the merit, so that kids, in the first instance, get an equal shot at being home. Canada is trying to get out of that hearing on a legal loophole. We think this is such a fundamental issue of importance; the equity of first nations children in 2010 should never be resolved on legal technicalities. It is a matter of Canadian conscience, morality, and our commitment from the apology of the Prime Minister, and recently by the government signing the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.

If we were to do something about why there are so many first nations children in child welfare care, we would then be able to address the issue of adoption much more effectively and in a sensitive way.

There are several forms of adoption. There is western adoption, which really creates a bond between a child and a parent. That type of adoption was imposed on first nations communities. Many of you will know that during a period called the “sixties scoop”, there were mass removals of first nations children, and they were adopted into non-aboriginal homes, often permanently, in Canada and in the United States, a process that was so rampant that it commended Judge Edwin Kimelman to conduct a review of the matter in 1983, in his report “No Quiet Place”. He found that the whole practice amounted to cultural genocide. That resulted in many first nations wanting to set a moratorium on adoption, understandably so, as many of their children were leaving the homes, often because they were denied the same basic access to service that other Canadians enjoy.

Over the last 20 years, first nations have reasserted their ability, their traditional laws for adoption. First nations communities all across the country, for thousands of years, have practised adoption. It just simply wasn't called that. There isn't a word that really is proximal to adoption, because in a first nations concept, it is a child being adopted by a community. It is introducing to the child multiple caregivers and creating a safety net so that if any one individual caregiver is no longer able to care for the child, there are adults in the circle who understand their responsibilities and their love and relationship to that child and they step in.

In the brief that I prepared for you, I highlighted the Yellowhead Tribal Services Agency in Alberta. Sadly, the federal government provides no systematic funding for first nations adoption programs, or for support for first nations parents pursuing adoption or having placed their children for adoption. But this particular community received some pilot funding from the Government of Alberta. Its program is very holistic. It provides supports for not only the birth parent and birth adoptive parent but for their extended families and nations as well. It does that pre-, during, and post-adoption. It's all based on the Yellowhead Tribal Services' customary concepts of what adoption and what relationships with children mean.

What's so extraordinary about this program is they have placed well over 100 children, many of whom are not babies, but children with special needs—your eight-year-old with fetal alcohol syndrome—or teenagers. They have not had one adoption break down. This is unparalleled in the vast majority of mainstream adoption agencies. For that, this agency has won several international awards of excellence. It has been generous in sharing its model with other first nations, such as the Cowichan Tribes in British Columbia, who are mentored by YTSA and who are currently, with great success, able to recreate that model in their own cultural base.

I would commend that one of the things that needs to happen is for the federal government to support these best practices, because we know they work for first nations children and their families and for adoptive parents.

The other piece that needs to happen is in international adoption. Although there's growing recognition of the importance of identifying aboriginal children's heritage and supporting that in any adoption placement, whether that happens via mainstream or first nations adoption, there is absolutely no mechanism to be able to determine whether children coming from international countries and being placed for adoption here have any recognition of their indigenous heritage.

Now think about this for a moment, committee members. The largest population of indigenous peoples in the world is in China. Many children from that country are placed here. The second largest country in the world with the most indigenous peoples is India, and yet those children are not identified as indigenous and no supports are provided.

I'm just going to refer you to the final page of my brief, page 6, where I list a bunch of recommendations.

The first is to provide equitable and culturally based supports for children in their own family homes. Children should not be placed for adoption because their families are deprived of the same shot at being able to care for them successfully in their family homes.

The other is that the federal government must work in meaningful partnership with first nations, on reserve and off reserve, to provide holistic supports, along the lines of those provided by Yellowhead Tribal Services, for adoptive parents, children, and communities, and their birth families as well. The federal government must also work with organizations such as the National Association of Friendship Centres to ensure that those services are provided off reserve, because currently the number of aboriginal programs off reserve is very spotty.

The final recommendation is with regard to Jordan's Principle. This was passed by Parliament in 2007 as a private member's motion. It ensures that first nations children and their families are not deprived of services available to other Canadians because of fiscal jurisdictional disputes between the federal and provincial governments. The federal government, since passing it, has chosen to narrow it to apply to only children with complex medical needs. That is not in the original wording of the motion; it is not in Jordan's Principle. It applies to all government services. Should it be implemented, that would make sure that every first nations family has the same availability to adoption supports that other Canadians enjoy.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

[The Chair, Conservative, Candice Bergen]

Thank you very much, Ms. Blackstock.

We will now go to Mr. Saulis. You have seven minutes. I'll let you know when you're at the one-minute mark. Thank you.

[Conrad Saulis, Policy Director, National Association of Friendship Centres]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

I want to thank you and the members of the committee for the invitation to come to present to you on this—as Cindy very eloquently said—very important and serious matter and issue.

As I prepare presentations to make before various committees that the NAFC presents to, I always do my own little bit of research. It was in this particular case that I just couldn't come up with any good news or good scenarios, or anything positive, necessarily. It was more disappointing things that I came across, in trying to find information on urban aboriginal adoption issues and matters. I wish there were positive things. But on the other hand, as Cindy very eloquently said, I think there's an opportunity. There are opportunities all the time.

The opportunities are based on our own willingness to dialogue together, to listen to each other, to learn and find out from each other, to learn from experts like Cindy what the best practices are out there. There are best practices on reserve, and despite their limited number, urban-based child and family service agencies and Métis child and family service agencies have best practices as well.

One of the toughest bridges to cross that I learned about in my research was—and in particular I'll look towards Ontario—the capacity to appreciate what customary adoption is and its uniqueness from aboriginal community to aboriginal community. It seemed that there was a desire on the part of the established Children's Aid Society system to want to compartmentalize it and use a compartmentalizing process and take it from one community to another community.

We always pride ourselves on the distinctiveness of communities. While we may be one nation—maybe it's the Ojibway Nation or the Oneida Nation—communities within those nations are distinct. The same thing exists in the urban areas, although it's more of a blending. As well, there are particular issues that pertain to each case.

As I said, it was one of the more sorrowful kinds of research issues that I've looked into.

I am a former social worker from my own first nation community of Tobique in New Brunswick. I was the director-supervisor of the child welfare agency back there as well, back in the early eighties, so I have a good idea. I was a few years ago able to moderate a round table discussion here in Ottawa with some adoptive parents who had adopted aboriginal children. They very eloquently, very sadly, and in many situations breaking down in tears were saying how frustrated they were with the system.

Unfortunately, what I'm saying is not in my presentation. On the other hand, I think it's important to let you know of the experiences that adoptive parents have with the federal government, and in particular with the Department of Indian Affairs—and to a certain extent as well, I guess, with the first nations and Inuit health branch—under non-insured health benefits to access those benefits and be able to provide properly and adequately for the child, if it's a status first nations child.

In the urban area, we have such a blending of aboriginal people. We have a lot of first nations people, a lot of Métis people, and in particular in the east, in Montreal and in Ottawa, a lot of Inuit as well.

It puts a lot of pressure on the very few child welfare agencies that exist. There's one in Toronto, Native Child and Family Services of Toronto, and in Vancouver as well, the Aboriginal Child and Family Services Society. I know for sure that the one in Toronto does work on adoptions.

There are a number of issues. I want to read a little bit from an article I ran across in my research. It's called “Adoption Crisis”. It says:

In April 2007, the Standing Senate Committee on Human Rights issued a report titled Children: The Silenced Citizens that concluded “there is an adoption crisis in Canada.” It called on “governments across Canada to recognize and address the adoption crisis in this country, particularly in the case of aboriginal children.” Despite the fact that aboriginal families are more inclined than non-aboriginal to adopt, there continues to be a chronic shortage of aboriginal foster and adoptive parents.

Meanwhile, a May 2008 report by the Auditor General of Canada found the federal government is failing to provide First Nations Child and Family Services agencies with adequate funding to meet the number or the needs of children in care.

And here is the champion right here:

That report stated that the funding formula has not been reviewed since 1998, and it has not been adjusted for inflation since 1995.

Earlier this year, the Canadian Human Rights Commission launched an inquiry into a complaint regarding First Nations children in state care.

In Ontario, there are currently approximately 9,200 children available for adoption. Of those, 1,191 (13%) are children with aboriginal ancestry.

I think I'll stop there.

[The Chair, Conservative, Candice Bergen]

Thank you. That actually is perfect timing. Thank you for both those presentations.

I think we'll start with a five-minute round, and then we'll see whether we can do three minutes after that. The five minutes will include the questions and the answers. Again, I'll be keeping the time, so if you just watch me, I'll let you know how much time you have to answer the question.

We'll begin with the Liberals, with Madam Folco, please.

[Raymonde Folco, Liberal, Laval—Les Îles, QC]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Madam Blackstock, Mr. Saulis, let me tell you how much I appreciated your presentations, for all sorts of reasons. One of the reasons is that you didn't come and say, “These are the problems.” You came and said, “These are the solutions.” I think the time for looking at the problems, if I can put it this way, is really over. We know what the problems are; it's up to us as legislators, on both sides of the table, to look at how we're going to follow through with some of the suggestions and recommendations you have made in this matter.

I'm entirely in agreement with you when you talk about cultural suicide. I've worked with various first nations groups, particularly in Quebec, and I know what happens to them when kids are taken out of their own home environment into a totally different culture and language. So I'm very happy that you spoke up loud and clear.

What I'd like to know first of all is how traditional adoption, within the particular aboriginal group that the child belongs to in the first place, happens. Does the federal or the provincial government have a role to play? That's my first question, and then I'll move on.

I'll leave it up to whoever wants to answer.

[Cindy Blackstock]

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 nations around supports for adoptive parents or for birth parents on reserve. This is critical, because as you pointed out, Madam, we've already recognized for decades the importance of first nations children being placed with their communities whenever possible. So why aren't we doing everything to create conditions in which that happens, by supporting these parents?

As for the provinces, in several of the provinces and in the territories there are currently provisions for the recognition of customary adoptions. The provisions vary, but in general it requires that an elder be able to say “this was our traditional form of adoption” before the provincial court; that can be recognized. Many of the provinces and territories are moving forward—provinces, for example, such as British Columbia—and have had these provisions for a number of years, but they haven't been operationalized because of the lack of federal funding and support for adoption programs.

[Raymonde Folco, Liberal, Laval—Les Îles, QC]

It's less difficult to understand this when you're talking about a rural milieu on the reservations. What happens in the urban milieu, where the community may not necessarily be a homogenous community within the city or a town? How does it work? I put that question to both of you.

[Conrad Saulis]

In the urban areas there are obviously a lot more challenges because of the composition of the urban aboriginal population. But I think there is still the same value of wanting to be able to assure that native children are in the care of native parents, whether they are foster parents or adoptive parents.

[Raymonde Folco, Liberal, Laval—Les Îles, QC]

Does it matter which native group they belong to in that case?

[Conrad Saulis]

There would be a preference to find either adoptive or foster parents who are from the same nation. If it's a Métis child, find Métis. If it's a first nation child, find first nation parents. If all goes well, if it's an Ojibway child, find Ojibway parents. But if not, find somebody who is at least first nation who then would be able to support that child.

[Raymonde Folco, Liberal, Laval—Les Îles, QC]

In the urban environment, who is the agency? Is there an agency apart from your own agency in terms of a government agency? Is it the provincial or the federal agency that works with you in the urban environment?

[Conrad Saulis]

There are provincial and territorial agencies that work with the Native Child and Family Service Agency of Toronto. They would work with the Children's Aid Society and with the provincial government, and it is the same in Vancouver. They would fall within the purview of provincial legislation and authority.

[The Chair, Conservative, Candice Bergen]

Monsieur Lessard.

[Yves Lessard, Bloc, Chambly—Borduas, QC]

Thank you, Ms. Blackstock and Mr. Saulis, for being here today to assist us with our study that deals, as you know, with federal support measures for adoptive parents. As you may already see me coming, I will try to bring the discussion back to the subject of our study. I believe you also deal with it, Ms. Blackstock in the brief you submitted.

Your report includes a statement that echoes what you raised earlier:

There is an acknowledgment that the birth parent has a special and unique gift to contribute to the child that cannot be provided by other community members, so active steps are taken to ensure the child knows his or her parents, extended family and clan.

You emphasize repeatedly this sense of belonging that must accompany the child until adulthood, in terms of his or her place of origin and especially his birth parents.

My first question is directed at both of you. Regarding this concern you have about providing support to a family in order for the child to be able to stay in that home, what are those concrete measures that could be taken within the federal jurisdiction, as far as you know?

You say in your report and our analysts have also reminded us of this: since 1951, powers have been delegated to provinces, especially in the areas of health, welfare, education, but also partly in the area of adoption. I would like to hear your views on this.

What are the very specific services on which we should focus that would be part of the federal government's responsibilities?

[Cindy Blackstock]

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 based level. That is not my standard; that is the standard of the Department of Indian Affairs.

According to the Auditor General in 2008, they failed to meet that standard. Although they've launched something called an enhanced funding model, their own evaluation, dated 2010 and done by the Indian affairs department, echoes the finding of the Auditor General, which said this is not equitable.

The good news is there is a solution to it. Back in 2005 there was an expert report prepared by over 20 leading academics across the country, including five economists, that costed out the shortfall in child and family services on reserve. At the time, it would have cost less than half a percent of the federal surplus budget to make sure these children had an equitable chance of staying safely in their homes. The federal government chose not to implement that, and has not implemented that solution up to this day.

So we would ask the federal government to take immediate action to ensure the culturally based equity of all children and their families in adoption and child welfare care on reserve.

[Conrad Saulis]

Thank you for the question.

In the off-reserve or the urban setting, with the division of powers between the federal and provincial governments, there is a complexity to how the federal government can and should work with provincial authorities to address the issues and the needs of the urban aboriginal population. But I believe there is a role for the federal government to play. I think there are federal responsibilities for aboriginal people regardless of residency.

One of the issues that first nations continually bring up is the portability of their rights. They don't exist only on first nations reserves or communities, and they continue to exist no matter where first nations people live. The Métis have always struggled to ensure that the federal government continue to enhance and support the federal jurisdictional responsibility. I believe there is a role for the federal government with the provincial and territorial authorities.

[The Chair, Conservative, Candice Bergen]

Thank you. That's great.

We'll go to Mr. Martin.

[Tony Martin, NDP, Sault Ste. Marie, ON]

Thank you for coming today and sharing with us your thoughts and recommendations.

Cindy, I've heard you tell us a couple of times that there are currently more aboriginal children in care in non-aboriginal homes than there ever were in residential schools. You also said that the reason for this in many instances has to do with neglect, and underpinning that is the question of poverty. Maybe you could expand a bit more on that for us. Is there anything more sinister going on here than simply the country trying to look after some very poor children?

[Cindy Blackstock]

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 are things beyond the ability of people on reserve to control, because the people do not own their own residences. Their economic development is restricted by the Indian Act. So what we have created, along with the inequitable services on reserve, is what I often term a “perfect storm of disadvantage”. If you put any child in those conditions, their parents would struggle to take proper care of them.

The good news is that the federal government has control over housing on reserve. It has control over the Indian Act. It could promote economic development. It could ensure equity in children's services. If we did that, Member, I totally believe that we could finally turn the page on the disadvantage of first nations children. We would have substantial grounds from which to make other opportunities available. Some people might ask, well, Cindy, will that solve all the problems? Well, clearly not. But it would provide the best opportunity for success.

There's a reason why inequity is not a determinant of help. We as Canadians and you particularly as leaders in the federal government have an opportunity to make sure this is the generation that grows up knowing what it is to be treated with equity, support, and respect by the Government of Canada.

[Tony Martin, NDP, Sault Ste. Marie, ON]

When you talked about the Yellowhead Tribal Services in Alberta, you said that there were over 100 children and that none of these situations has failed. Were they able to deal with all the children that needed care in that community, or were there others who for lack of resources or capacity had to be sent elsewhere? Did they take care of the whole challenge themselves?

[Cindy Blackstock]

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 really unnecessary. There is a lot of need, and because it's been so successful, you can imagine that community members are seeing this as an important support for their community, their children, and their families.

The worry at this agency is that the province's priorities might change, and in the absence of a federal plan, these children would go back to being adoptive into the mainstream environment, which has not done a very good job of reaching out to first nations, Métis, or Inuit communities in their adoption programs and in developing the types of supports and the success we're seeing at Yellowhead Tribal Services.

[The Chair, Conservative, Candice Bergen]

You have about one minute.

[Tony Martin, NDP, Sault Ste. Marie, ON]

Conrad, you mentioned there's no way of keeping track of what's happening in the mainstream communities for aboriginal children. We heard earlier testimony that even in the larger adoption field there's no registry of children for adoption or families waiting. There's no way of connecting this. Maybe you could talk a little bit further about the comment you made that within the aboriginal community it's even worse.

[The Chair, Conservative, Candice Bergen]

You have about 30 seconds, sir.