Nakurmiik, Madam Chair.
Ulaakut. Good morning, everyone. It's good to be here.
Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami is the national representative organization for the 65,000 Inuit who live in Canada, the majority of whom live in Inuit Nunangat, our homeland. About 65% of our population still live in our homeland, and 35% now live outside of Inuit Nunangat. Our homeland encompasses 51 communities, nearly a third of Canada's landmass and 50% of its coastline.
ITK is governed by the elected leaders of the Inuvialuit Regional Corporation, Nunavut Tunngavik Inc., Makivik Corporation and the Nunatsiavut Government.
These four Inuit representational organizations and governments are Inuit rights holders under section 35 of the Constitution, having negotiated comprehensive Inuit-Crown land claim agreements between 1975 and 2005. It is therefore an appropriate and positive development that the Crown engaged Inuit rights holders in the development of Bill C-92. ITK helped facilitate regional engagement with the Government of Canada throughout this process through our national governance structure.
Too many Inuit children and youth have been and continue to be placed in care because of issues of neglect that can largely be attributed to the lack of attention to addressing social and economic inequities among Inuit. Because of the limited number of foster homes, professional services and residential care facilities throughout Inuit Nunangat, children are often sent outside of their communities and/or regions to be placed in care. As a consequence, far too many of our children are unable to participate in our culture and society and as members of our communities.
In July 2018 ITK created a working group to provide input, review documentation and provide recommendations related to the proposed federal legislation to the ITK board of directors. The working group included representation from Nunavut Tunngavik, the Inuvialuit Regional Corporation, the Nunatsiavut Government, the Nunavik Regional Board of Health and Social Services on behalf of Makivik Corporation, Pauktuutit Inuit Women of Canada and the Inuit Circumpolar Council of Canada.
ITK worked with the Government of Canada as well as the Assembly of First Nations and the Métis National Council to co-develop options for federal legislation to address the protection of Inuit children.
Through the input of ITK's working group and the engagement session organized by Pauktuutit, Inuit developed and submitted to Indigenous Services Canada a series of priorities for child protection. They included doing whatever is possible to keep children with their immediate and extended families, a goal reflected in clauses 15 and 16; ensuring that all care provided to Inuit children and families is culturally appropriate, as reflected in clauses 9 and 11; ensuring that Inuit children and youth living outside of Inuit Nunangat are identified as Inuit and are provided with culturally appropriate care, which is reflected in clauses 9, 11 and 28; ensuring that Inuit children and youth sent outside of Inuit Nunangat for specialized care remain in contact with their culture and home community, which is reflected in clauses 9, 10, 11 and 17. Inuit also called for the legislation to be outcomes-focused, distinctions-based, evidence-based and reflective of Inuit self-determination.
While much of what Inuit proposed was incorporated into Bill C-92, ITK is requesting an amendment to clause 28 of the bill, which speaks to information agreements. We know that indigenous children aged 0 to 14 make up 7.7% of all children in Canada yet represent 52% of children in foster care in private homes. However, with the limited data available in public reports, it is not possible to readily determine how many Inuit children have active statuses within child welfare services both within and outside of Inuit Nunangat.
Therefore, ITK requests that paragraph 28(a) be amended to ensure that data gathered on indigenous children in care are disaggregated to clarify whether they are first nations, Inuit or Métis, and in the case of Inuit, that their affiliated land claim organization be identified. This would enable service providers to connect with and serve notice to the Inuit land claim organizations so that Inuit children and youth can continue to receive the benefits they are entitled to under their respective land claim agreements.
At a high level, there is consensus across Inuit Nunangat about how child welfare services would ideally be delivered within Inuit communities; however, none of the regions has been able to make a significant shift towards this vision on a system-wide scale. Bill C-92 can help us do so.
The status quo is completely unacceptable. There may be systems that may work and there may be fears about creating new solutions or interventions that improve systems, but in the end we have to figure out a way to ensure that this broken system can be repaired and that indigenous and Inuit self-determination can be the focal point for the new way in which we think about how child services are delivered.
Nakurmiik.