Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to be here on Algonquin territory to speak to the motion by the member for Timmins—James Bay. I want to thank the hon. member for affording me the opportunity to discuss this truly important issue, to address any misunderstandings, and to update the House on the progress we are making.
As minister, I have been mandated by the Prime Minister to engage in a renewed nation-to-nation process with indigenous people to make real progress on the issues most important to indigenous people, including child welfare.
We promised to establish a new relationship with indigenous people and a new way of doing things. We intend to keep our promise.
Our priority as parliamentarians and as responsible Canadians must be first and foremost the health, well-being, and protection of indigenous children.
All Canadians want children to have the best chance in life. First nations children, however, do not always have the same access to quality health and social services. They too often have been apprehended and placed in situations where they have suffered abuse. They have been removed from their culture and have therefore lost their personal cultural identity, which is essential for optimal health, education, and economic outcomes. This is shameful and has to change.
For years I have been outspoken on the need to reform this system. The fact that there are more children in care than at the height of the residential schools is heartbreaking.
The first five recommendations of the report of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission recognize the need for all of us to work together to close that gap. I intend to honour that commitment and take action immediately.
The hon. member has placed his motion in the context of the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal decision on child and family services. I want to state clearly that the government welcomed the decision of the tribunal, and we are working to implement its findings, including ending the discriminatory practices identified by the tribunal, but we were working on this regardless of what the tribunal said about the need to make the reforms.
In my view, one of the most important factors in that discrimination is the overrepresentation of indigenous children in care. These children are separated from their families, at risk of losing their culture and identity and language, and even worse, of facing abuse and violence, as was demonstrated in the member's speech. It is the current system that causes this, and we can and will do better by these children.
The tribunal has said that it believes that the federal government is “determined to reform the entire FNCFS Program and believes it intends do so”. We are, and we will.
The Minister of Health and I have been working very hard every single day to ensure that first nations children have access to the health and social services they are entitled to.
Last December, at the Assembly of First Nations Special Chiefs Assembly, I committed to working toward an overhaul of the child welfare system on reserve. I meant what I said that day. We are committed to nothing less than a full-scale reform of child and family services on reserve and are undertaking that reform in partnership with the provinces and territories and first nations.
We are actively reaching out to partners across the country to jointly develop options for reform. This includes working in partnership with first nations organizations, leadership, communities, front-line service providers and agencies, non-governmental organizations, other federal departments, and the provinces and territories, to meaningfully reform the first nations child and family services program.
We need transformational change. The goal of the child welfare system must be to reduce the disproportionate number of children in care, full stop. The member spoke to the need for reform, but unfortunately, that is not in the motion.
As a first step, we need to end the funding discrimination endemic in the first nations child welfare system. Budget 2016 announced an investment of $634.8 million over five years to support the immediate needs of first nations children on reserve. This included $71 million in immediate relief investments for first nations child and family services. The immediate relief was focused on providing additional enhanced prevention services in every province and the Yukon territory.
We agree with the tribunal that future funding must not be based on an arbitrary formula or figure created behind closed doors in Ottawa. Rather, it must be based on the actual day-to-day needs of agencies. It must be based on what it will take to operationalize transformational reform and keep kids out of care and in their communities.
We also agree that Jordan's principle applies to all first nations children, and we are already applying its full meaning and scope. Children are getting their needs met.
I am proud to report that, since the changes implemented last July, nearly 900 children from every province and territory have been designated to receive services under the expanded definition of Jordan's principle. Those children would not have had access to those services in the past.
These are concrete first steps in addressing the most pressing concerns. However, it is not only about money. Building something new, something different, means that we need to talk to the people who are most involved. This new approach means moving forward in our relationships.
We want to be accountable for results: keeping more families together and reducing the number of kids in care. It is no longer satisfactory that the federal government pays the provinces and Yukon to deliver services without any say in the results.
The current system has left kids suffering and taken them from their families and communities. One need look no further than the recent report by the B.C. child advocate to see the tragic results of how this system fails kids.
We heard time and time again during our consultations on the design of the national public inquiry into missing and murdered indigenous women and girls about the direct connection between the failure of the child welfare system and the issue of missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls. It has affected both the children who were taken and the women and mothers who were left behind.
There is the story of Reina Foster, who I was lucky enough to spend the day with in early October as part of the celebration of International Day of the Girl.
Reina was put in foster care when she was just two. It was the first of six foster homes she lived in, during which she both witnessed and experienced abuse. As I said that day, Reina spoke truth to power in a very poignant way. It reaffirmed my understanding of the need to listen to people who are affected by policies like child welfare.
We have been listening to the concerns of first nations communities and organizations regarding the child welfare system. We agree that it needs a total overhaul, and we are taking action.
On September 22, I was pleased to appoint Dr. Cynthia Wesley-Esquimaux as my special representative responsible for leading the engagement process on the total reform of the on-reserve first nations child and family services program. Dr. Wesley-Esquimaux is a member of the Chippewas of Georgina Island first nation in Ontario and is the chair of truth and reconciliation at Lakehead University. She has spent her whole career advocating for and advancing the rights of indigenous peoples. This appointment represents a key step in our commitment to engage with all the provinces and territories and all partners for the full-scale reform of the first nations child and family services program.
This is important, as we need to transform the system with the benefit of hearing directly from youth, incorporating their lived experiences into any new approach. The voices of the children who participated in the Feathers of Hope gathering echo in my ears every day. The feather they gave me sits on my desk, reminding me of this important work on a daily basis. They told me their difficult stories of abuse, of being separated from siblings, and of being told that their culture, their beliefs, and their traditions were inferior.
We have taken a number of concrete steps. Dr. Wesley-Esquimaux has begun consultations on reform, which will run from coast to coast to coast. This afternoon she will be meeting with all the provincial child advocates.
We are surveying all agencies to better understand their unique and individual needs and circumstances, and we are committed to identifying best practices that achieve real and culturally appropriate results for kids.
These models include things like Touchstones of Hope, championed by Cindy Blackstock, and the Maori family conferencing model, Ma Mawi Wi Chi Itata, in Manitoba.
The federal government is also a full partner at tripartite meetings with the provinces and the Yukon, first nations, and agencies to discuss real reforms in the system.
We are funding indigenous regional organizations to hold meetings and gather strategic information that can inform the reform process. We will be meeting with child advocates and other provincial and Yukon stakeholders.
We are working to re-establish the national advisory committee to provide advice on the engagement process and the reform of this program. The committee will include representatives from the federal government, the Assembly of First Nations, the First Nations Child and Family Caring Society, agency directors, and an elder and youth representative.
We are also planning for a national summit on indigenous child welfare in early 2017. The summit will bring together key stakeholders and hear from youth in care, service providers, child advocates, first nations community representatives, researchers, and others who will share information about wise practices in prevention and how to support children and families.
There is a federal-provincial-territorial working group, involving senior officials who work on child and family services, to share information and best practices. I will also be working with the Minister of Families, Children and Social Development to launch consultations with provinces and territories and indigenous peoples on a national early learning and child care framework.
We know how important affordable, high-quality, flexible, and fully inclusive child care is, but we also know that for indigenous children, care must be culturally appropriate in support of their language and culture.
I can say with conviction that our concrete measures will help put an end to these discriminatory practices.
We have taken real steps to, in the Gitxsan phrase, upright the canoe.
We know that real reform does not happen overnight, but we must be relentlessly focused on driving this reform. We have to understand that removing first nations children from their families, from their communities, and from their language and culture creates lasting damage.
This was what was meant by the motto of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission: For the child taken, for the parent left behind. That must be and will be our motto as we reform the system once and for all and put first nations kids first.