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Indigenous Services Minister Jane Philpott is calling for an emergency meeting early next year on Aboriginal child welfare, likening the current state of affairs to Canada's residential school legacy that forcibly removed young people from their culture and families.

Philpott, who fired off a letter this week to provincial and territorial counterparts requesting their attendance at the meeting, said the rate at which Canada is apprehending Indigenous kids is among the highest in the world.

http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2017/11/02 ... a-homepage

Tough, tough issue. Have to give Jane Philpott credit for taking it on.

Can't say I have any idea of what a resolution might look like, but perhaps Jane, who is proving to be a very capable and gutsy minister, can find one.

If she can sort out this thorny issue, I will be entirely impressed.

One would think that anyone that has heard of the residential school fiasco would realize that any government intervention will likely fail.
Whether or not anyone agrees with the schools, the purpose of them was to help the natives.
A friend that went to secondary education with some of them said they told him that being taken of those dead end reserves was the best thing that ever happened to them.
Many of these people have good jobs and are supporting their families.
You will seldom hear about those people because the news wants to focus on the losers instead.
Losers tend to be losers no matter what is done for them, there is always an excuse for their failure.
Everything the natives have needed for years has been available to them.
What is missing is the ambition and desire to succeed.
They can work to solve their problems but they won't.
More handouts will not fix these issues, the solution is within themselves.

Everything the natives have needed for years has been available to them.
What is missing is the ambition and desire to succeed.

That is so sad. I am extremely grateful that the next generation of high school students is going to be so much better informed on this issue (some curriculum highlights by following link below). Some of the ill-informed, erroneous and prejudicial ideas still held by so many in our society do nothing but encourage divisiveness. Thankfully, the real truth (known all along, but somehow generally dismissed by some in an effort to deny) is getting out there, and educating our students to be better informed of these issues than their parents is a good start. Certainly, it is very clear that some on this board will never muster the courage to even challenge their preconceived notions, let alone admit they might have been misinformed by stereotype and hate-promoting rhetoric. It seems we’re always hoping for things to get better, rather on making them better right now. This education leading to a better understanding will help.

viewtopic.php?f=31&t=74088

Money needs to be spent that might have gone to foster parents to instead be used for intense family counselling to heal a fractured family who is dealing with chronic poverty and addiction.

We have fostered many family's children some of who have been Indiginous. As a foster parent, I must know that my services are supposed to be temporary, and the goal is the reunification of family and healing, not to remove children and blow up everyone in the process.

I once had a Native child in our home for 16 weeks who came to us right from detoxing in the neo-natal unit at Women's in Van. The mother was a local opioid user in the Okanagan, and it was important to keep the baby in the community. I was given this opportunity because I was still nursing our own baby and they wanted a local lactating foster mother. The mother spent 30 days in a rehab, and we never met her at first. She then spent the next 3 months in a sober living facility. We would bring her HER baby in sober living every day and did our best to encourage her to reattach with her baby, which she did eventually. I know that lots of people would think this baby better off with us, and we certainly would have taken the baby long term if that is what was best, but it wasn't what was best in my opinion, or in the opinion of social services. Nursing a newborn for 16 weeks is brutal, especially a drug addicted one. Trust me, I cried a million times over that baby, and the day I had to give him back to his mother was pretty tough. But as foster parents, this is what we signed up for, and we always have to keep in mind that they aren't our children, that we are just lucky enough to get them for a little bit, and even luckier still if they get back in with their own family.

But in some jurisdictions, social services are way too heavy handed (and in some not enough). We seize Indiginous children at much higher rates than any other child would be. In some jurisdictions, a child is seized for the most ridiculous reasons ever, and have nothing to do with current history, and instead a historical bias. The matter of where the money goes is no joke, we have social workers sometimes caring for Indiginous seized children at hotels (so think about the cost of the worker full time 24-7, and the cost of paying a hotel a monthly rate (crazy money) that should go instead to heal the family home so that the service isn't needed. I have no problem taking a child out of an acute situation temporarily, but the goal should be temporary, and the money should flow for treatment of family, not to house children and pay a social worker to be a mommy.

This is a truly difficult issue. I have only had indirect contact with Jane Philpott as Health Minister, but she strikes me as the kind of person, somebody who really cares, that may be able to at least get the ball rolling on this issue.

https://pm.gc.ca/eng/minister/honourable-jane-philpott

We have seen all stripes of government fail in trying to sort this out. From the NDP in Manitoba to the Liberals in BC. Mostly it winds up being an exercise in controlling political spin, which is really sad.

Jane's profile indicates that she less interested in politics than solving problems for people. That's a good start right there. I actually believe it may be true in this case, as Jane supported a Conservative health care initiative as Minister of Health (the Naylor report commissioned by Rona Ambrose).

"Fixes" are unlikely to be quick. But if anybody can cut through the morass of inter-provincial politics and get to the heart of the matter, Jane seems to be one those people. As I said before, a really thorny issue and I wish her well and admire her courage and commitment in even taking it on.

dogspoiler wrote:One would think that anyone that has heard of the residential school fiasco would realize that any government intervention will likely fail.
Whether or not anyone agrees with the schools, the purpose of them was to help the natives.
A friend that went to secondary education with some of them said they told him that being taken of those dead end reserves was the best thing that ever happened to them.
Many of these people have good jobs and are supporting their families.
You will seldom hear about those people because the news wants to focus on the losers instead.
Losers tend to be losers no matter what is done for them, there is always an excuse for their failure.
Everything the natives have needed for years has been available to them.
What is missing is the ambition and desire to succeed.
They can work to solve their problems but they won't.
More handouts will not fix these issues, the solution is within themselves.

Great post, you are on the ball. I also went to school with a number students. I have relatives who were products of Residential Schooling.

They all turned out well, successful and good families.

I am troubled, this issue is not new. I look at the history and the sad stories. I then ask, if you know it is a problem what do you do? Then I ask what have the Indigenous communities done for their people?

Yes, what have they done, they are upset at Federal Government for stepping in when they themselves failed. Now they want someone again to step up to the plate and fix a problem that is now likely third generation in some cases. Are they dealing with it or just saying. "You need to fix it?"

This issued may also be linked if you wish to the missing Indigenous woman.

What are they doing right now to help stop the problem for their people? Again if the Federal Government starts pulling young girls away from the broken home, we will have another sad story of the failure, but as stated never a story of the success because how would that sound?