Ministers eye native kids in care

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This article was published 11/09/2014 (4056 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

WORK to address the disproportionate number of aboriginal children in care across the country starts today in Calgary at a meeting of Canada’s social-services ministers.

Manitoba Minister of Family Services Kerri Irvin-Ross said she and Premier Bob McLeod of the Northwest Territories are to start the process to address why so many indigenous kids are involved in child welfare and to seek alternatives.

Irvin-Ross said in initial conversations with her provincial and territorial counterparts, the theme has been Ottawa has to become more involved in First Nations issues such as providing proper housing, clean water and education.

“When we talk about child welfare and the needs of families, it often goes down to the issue of poverty,” Irvin-Ross said Wednesday.

McLeod and Irvin-Ross took on the task of looking for solutions to reduce the number of aboriginal children in care following last month’s meeting of Canada’s premiers in Charlottetown.

The issue of overrepresentation of First Nations children in the child-welfare system was driven by the 91-day inquiry into the 2005 murder of five-year-old Phoenix Sinclair by her mother and stepfather and the failure of Manitoba’s child-welfare system to protect her. She moved in and out of foster care, suffering horrific abuse before she died from her injuries.

Commissioner Ted Hughes submitted 62 recommendations to improve the child-welfare system, among them asking Premier Greg Selinger to address the matter nationally among his counterparts.

In Manitoba, there are nearly 10,000 children in the care of child-welfare agencies and more than 70 per cent of them are aboriginal. Hughes said Manitoba is not alone.

Irvin-Ross said a focus of the meeting is looking at how First Nations communities can attain the basic services most Canadians take for granted and including aboriginal leaders in the discussion.

Also to be discussed, she said, are the overlaps of too many aboriginal children in foster care and the high number of slain and missing aboriginal women.

bruce.owen@freepress.mb.ca