It's time for Ottawa to step up for native kids and families and match provincial funding models, says the head of Manitoba's Southern First Nations Child and Family Services Authority.
Elsie Flette said everyone always points the finger at the provincial government when things go wrong in child welfare. But they forget that Ottawa is responsible for more than one-third of the kids with child welfare files in this province.
'We're back to square one' - Elsie Flette
"When a child dies the pressure is on the province but the feds fund this too," said Flette. "Who is asking (Prime Minister Stephen) Harper how this happened? Where is the accountability from Ottawa?"
Ottawa funds child welfare cases for families and children who live on reserves. Kids in care get the same amount of funding regardless of who is paying but operating funding for aboriginal agencies is different.
Operational funding pays for social worker salaries, and for service programs such as therapy, parenting classes or assistance with child care.
Flette said a review of the situation has shown that, for every dollar the province spends on child welfare, Ottawa's contribution is 78 cents which means kids on reserves are getting short changed.
The funding discrepancy means aboriginal agencies can't hire as many social workers for reserves as are needed, which affects workloads.
And they also can't provide as many services to families to prevent them from having their children apprehended.
Ultimately, that means more kids are being brought into care and having a kid in care costs Ottawa a lot more money than paying more for social workers and services on the front end, said Flette.
And Flette said the figures are not taking into account the $48 million in new money the provincial government put into the system recently to help reduce workloads and improve the services provided to kids in care.
When that money is factored in, Flette said, the discrepancy between Manitoba and Ottawa's funding will grow.
"The feds have to step up," said Flette.
The formula Ottawa uses to calculate its child welfare funding hasn't been updated since 1992 and it didn't make sense to start with. The formula is mainly based on the total number of kids on a reserve, not on how many families are receiving or need help.
It means a reserve like Peguis, which is bigger, gets more money than a smaller reserve like Pauingassi. But the formula doesn't take into account the factthat Pauingassi has a higher percentage of troubled families than Peguis.
A plan to rejig the formula had been worked out after years of negotiation in 2005, said Flette. But it was still awaiting approval when the government changed hands in January 2006 and when Harper's government took over, it wanted to go a different direction.
"We're back to square one," she said.
A spokeswoman for Indian and Northern Affairs Canada said there are discussions under way to address the funding discrepancy but said they are at an early stage and won't be complete until the provincial government decides exactly how it is going to implement promised changes to the system, including providing more up-front and prevention services to kids and families.
mia.rabson@freepress.mb.ca
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