Assembly vote draws line in sand 

When $47.8 billion isn’t enough and people stand up and say that, it certainly gets people in Canada to take notice.

That’s what happened last week as the Assembly of First Nations chiefs voted down the historic long-term child welfare settlement with Ottawa, saying it wasn’t enough.

And they have a point.

And Cindy Blackstock, the executive director of the Child and Family Caring Society, agreed. We would not have necessarily predicted that even a few months ago, because it looked like a done deal, but there was more to it than the money. And so much happens behind closed doors that we don’t know about.

First off, Canada has been underfunding our kids on reserve for far too long, for much more than that amount. Hell, we are only talking about child welfare, and not land, health issues, and education, yet we’re balking at billions. That shows how much is really owed. Think hundreds of trillions, plus land back.

When the issue of settlement was being tossed back and forth, Canada steadfastly refused to budge and had to be taken to a human rights tribunal. Many believed the original amount was acceptable, for the next 10 years, at least as a framework going forward. But with little accountability and redress, meaning Canada would get off the hook simply by throwing money at the issue, Blackstock and the AFN vote sent things back to the drawing table.

Infrastructure was also not included, and Blackstock feared Canada would have too much control over on-reserve children after they signed.

This is what it takes to fight Canada – a never-say-die attitude, even in the face of a settlement that’s “good enough.”

Well, it’s not good enough for our children and our future, so they did what was right.

Moving forward, what will child welfare and Jordan’s Principle – a directive born out of Ottawa’s refusal to pay for services it is obligated to – look like?

We say often that our elders are dying and with them the history, language, and continuity from days of old; but with our children suffering and dying due to the callous attitude of Canadian politicians, both ends of our demographics are being attacked. Somewhere in the middle lies the ones who can fight, the ones who still have enough youth mixed with wisdom gained by listening to those elders, and standing up for those children, and those are the ones who will change things until our youth can take over.

Fighting Canada is a long and arduous process, and the original agreement signed in 2016 seems like a lifetime ago, but we’re glad Blackstock has stuck with it and has pushed the envelope, even when she was being threatened and spied on, and told to go home by some of our own.

Nothing good comes without some kind of fight, as the saying goes, and what’s better than setting up our children for a better future by fighting for them now and then them joining that fight when they reach adulthood?

If we all had the spirit, the means and the, let’s face it, proverbial balls to fight, we could accomplish so much in our communities.

But sadly, Blackstock and her ilk are few and far between. They don’t make them like her and people with that much influence make themselves targets.

She certainly has become a big one and has been one for many years, but knowing she’s doing it with truth as her ally, with our kids in the forefront, with all of us in mind, well she’s a modern-day hero, plain and simple.

We aren’t fully there yet but with the support of many of the AFN chiefs, we will get there. We aren’t big fans of the Assembly, but if they can fight on the side they’re meant to, and come out with tangible results, we’re all for it.

Steve Bonspiel

The Eastern Door