Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise today and address the question asked by my colleague from Timmins—James Bay. I am particularly pleased to address this as the Assembly of First Nations Special Chiefs Assembly takes place in Ottawa this week.
I would like to recognize the AFN and the national advisory committee on first nations child and family services program reform for its efforts and advocacy. Our government agrees that we must completely overhaul child and family services for first nations communities.
We need to increase proactive support for children and their families, keep more children out of care, and support them to grow up in their families and communities with a secure personal cultural identity.
We know that to truly end discrimination, we must reform the current broken system and provide funding to better meet the needs of first nations children and families. The issues are complex and the solutions are multi-faceted, which is why we are working with the provinces, experts, and first nations partners to ensure the well-being of children comes first.
We believe that solutions made in partnership will yield the best long-term lasting results. We have heard from first nations that the development and implementation of the vision for change must be placed in the hands of indigenous governments and their membership.
This will enable indigenous peoples to directly address healing and prevention needs. It will also respect that the "one size fits all" approach to child and family well-being does not work.
Currently, the standards and values of children's aid societies across the country do not consistently reflect the standards and values of first nations peoples. Some provinces are making strides to change this, but more work is required.
This is why the minister has called for an emergency meeting on indigenous child and family services to take place in 2018. This meeting will bring together the federal government, provinces, territories, indigenous leaders, provincial advocates and experts to discuss how we can work together to transform indigenous child and family welfare so that it is child-centred, community-directed, and focused on prevention.
Our priority continues to be first and foremost the well-being of first nations children and we are committed to working in partnership to better support first nations children, families, and communities.