‘I worry that something terrible will happen’

The chief of a Manitoba First Nation is pushing to terminate its child and family services agency, once lauded as superior to its provincial counterpart.

Peguis First Nation Chief Stan Bird called for the immediate termination of Peguis Child and Family Services, citing a lack of accountability, transparency, and oversight, which he says has led to children being turned away without services.

“We’re getting calls from concerned family members, we’ve had children calling me … families are not being supported,” Bird said at a Friday news conference. “Every day I worry that something terrible will happen.”

The agency assumed control of child welfare after developing its own law in January 2023, after the federal government passed legislation giving Indigenous communities the right to oversee child welfare.

Bird says he wants chief and council to again have oversight of the agency.

“We have an organization there that fails to listen to the concerns of our people because of how things have been set up,” he said.

The Peguis CFS organizational chart states chief and council oversee a board of directors and elder’s council, which then gives direction to the agency’s executive council. It remains unclear what authority chief and council has in the agency’s operations.

Bird said he requested several documents from the agency, including governance and human resource policies, but was denied access to them.

“There’s no proper oversight, there’s no proper checks, there’s no independent review. That means our children are uniquely vulnerable, and that’s something I cannot accept,” he said.

Sherry Gott, the Manitoba Advocate for Children and Youth, estimates one-third of the calls her office fields are from Peguis children and families.

“They say their people are not responsive and they are not getting the services they need,” she said. “We have tried to reach out. We’ve sent out a letter concerning some of the responsiveness of the agency, but we haven’t received any response.”

Gott met with Peguis CFS leadership when she was appointed in October 2022, but hasn’t been able to meet since. Ideally, she says she would have memorandums of understanding between her office and the Peguis agency to intervene when issues arise, but said Peguis refuses to agree to it.

She says the concerns raised by Bird are valid.

“It is concerning. The chief is right … the children are not satisfied with the service they’re getting,” she said.

The Manitoba advocate can’t intervene in child welfare complaints because it is provincially mandated, whereas Peguis CFS falls under federal jurisdiction.

The Free Press requested an interview with Peguis CFS executive director Clemene Hornbrook early Friday afternoon but did not receive a response by end-of-day.

Southern Chiefs’ Organization grand chief Jerry Daniels said he is in full support of Bird.

“We are strong advocates for (First Nations) jurisdiction and we want to maintain that … however, it must not come at the cost of the best interests of the child,” he said at the news conference.

In January 2023, Peguis signed a co-ordination agreement with the federal and provincial governments, which included a three-year, $319-million commitment from Ottawa to fund all aspects of child and family services.

CFS lawyer Earl Stevenson previously said the agency worked with elders to develop its own policies, regulations and legislation that incorporated feedback from the courts and outside legal experts.

Under Bill C-92, First Nations can amend their bylaws as they see fit to best serve clients.

At the Prairie Child Welfare Consortium conference held last June in Winnipeg, Stevenson said Peguis CFS was doing a much better job of child welfare than the provincially run agency.

At the time, the agency reported 230 Peguis children in care, down from 452 in 2020.

In an email statement,Families Minister Nahanni Fontaine said she has reached out to Bird about his concerns and will look to meet with him as soon as possible.

Since taking office following the October 2023 provincial election, Fontaine has advocated to “decolonize” the CFS system.

“The province supports Peguis’s right to jurisdiction (self-government) and will continue to work in tri-governmental partnership with Peguis and Canada to keep all children safe,” the statement read.

nicole.buffie@freepress.mb.ca