Abstract
The Truth and Reconciliation Commission has called upon Canada to engage in a process of reconciliation with the Indigenous peoples of Canada. Child Welfare is a specific focus of their Calls to Action. In this article, we look at the methods in which discontinuing colonization means challenging legal precedents as well as the types of evidence presented. A prime example is the ongoing deference to the Supreme Court of Canada decision in Racine v Woods which imposes Euro-centric understandings of attachment theory, which is further entrenched through the neurobiological view of raising children. There are competing forces observed in the Ontario decision on the Sixties Scoop, Brown v Canada, which has detailed the harm inflicted when colonial focused assimilation is at the heart of child welfare practice. The carillon of change is also heard in a series of decisions from the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal in response to complaints from the First Nations Child and Family Caring Society of Canada and the Assembly of First Nations regarding systemic bias in child welfare services for First Nations children living on reserves. Canadian federal legislation Bill C-92, “An Act respecting First Nations, Inuit and Métis children, youth and families”, brings in other possible avenues of change. We offer thoughts on manners decolonization might be approached while emphasizing that there is no pan-Indigenous solution. This article has implications for other former colonial countries and their child protection systems.
Highlights
We seek to show how Indigenous child protection cases in Canada are often decided in ways that reflect Euro-centric child protection policy and decision framing that are biased against Indigenous families
(2011) points out, data from the various incidence studies of child welfare cases in Canada shows that, “For every 1000 First Nations children living in the geographic areas served by sampled agencies, there were 140.6 child maltreatment-related investigations in 2008; for every 1000 non-Indigenous children living in the geographic areas served by sampled agencies, there were 33.5 investigations in 2008”
We have seen, that it is the Euro-centric understandings of family, parenting, child development and related theories that have come to represent the basis upon which child protection makes decisions about good enough parenting
Summary
We seek to show how Indigenous child protection cases in Canada are often decided in ways that reflect Euro-centric child protection policy and decision framing that are biased against Indigenous families. We argue that courts have a role in repairing the current harms inflicted and the harms inflicted from the past. We proceed by looking at the pathways to the current over-representation of Indigenous children in care. We consider legal decisions that act as hallmarks around the role of child protection in the lives of Indigenous peoples. The first is Racine v Wood (Racine 1983), which is a Supreme Court of Canada decision that laid the foundation for the Western theories around attachment and bonding to be seen as paramount to cultural considerations.
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