Indigenous Control of Child Welfare: What Did the Aboriginal Justice Inquiry and Truth and Reconciliation Commission Say?

Abstract

My Affidavit has been tendered as expert evidence in two separate matters that are currently before the Court. Both matters address First Nations children in the Child Welfare system being placed with non-Indigenous families and involve the competing principles of Attachment Theory versus the importance of having First Nations children raised in their own cultures by their own communities. Both matters highlight the continuing pattern of Child Welfare authorities placing First Nations children outside of their traditional families and communities, and the resulting reliance of foster families on Attachment Theory to justify their applications to make these placements permanent. I have been advanced as an expert in these matters as a result of my long years of work and experience with the Truth and Reconciliation Commission and the Manitoba Aboriginal Justice Inquiry in helping bring to light the over 100 years of extreme harm caused to First Nations families, communities, and societies - across numerous generations - as a result of the historical treatment of First Nations peoples at the hands of the Child Welfare system. I have been advised that it is the hope of the First Nations involved in these matters that my knowledge and evidence will help to bring into focus the changing societal and governmental awareness of the paramount importance of preserving Aboriginal cultures through the protection of the traditional Indigenous family units and the need to ensure Indigenous children are not severed from their cultures. The affidavit highlights key findings of the Manitoba Aboriginal Justice Inquiry (1991) and the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada (2015).