THE STANDING SENATE COMMITTEE ON HUMAN RIGHTS
EVIDENCE
OTTAWA, Monday, November 4, 2024
The Standing Senate Committee on Human Rights met with videoconference this day at 4:59 p.m. [ET], to examine such issues as may arise from time to time relating to human rights generally; and, in camera, to consider the Government Response to the Fourth Report of the Standing Senate Committee on Human Rights entitled “Human Rights of Federally-Sentenced Persons”, tabled in the Senate on June 16, 2021, during the Second Session of the Forty-third Parliament.
Senator Wanda Thomas Bernard (Deputy Chair) in the chair.
[English]
The Deputy Chair: Honourable senators, I would like to begin by acknowledging that the land on which we gather is the traditional, ancestral and unceded territory of the Anishinaabe Algonquin Nation, and is now home to many other First Nations, Métis and Inuit Peoples from across Turtle Island.
I am Wanda Thomas Bernard, a senator from Nova Scotia and deputy chair of this committee. In the absence of the chair, I will be chairing the meeting this evening.
I would first like to invite my honourable colleagues to introduce themselves.
Senator Gerba: Amina Gerba, Quebec.
Senator Arnot: I am David Arnot, from Saskatchewan.
Senator Ross: I am Krista Ross, from New Brunswick.
Senator Pate: Kim Pate, and I live here on the unceded, unsurrendered territory of the Algonquin Anishinaabeg.
Senator K. Wells: Kristopher Wells, Alberta.
The Deputy Chair: Welcome, senators, and welcome to all those who are following our deliberations from home.
Today, our committee will continue its study on aging out of foster care under its general order of reference.
Before we welcome our witnesses, I would like to provide a content warning for this meeting. The sensitive topics covered today may be triggering for people in the room with us as well as for those watching and listening to the broadcast. Mental health support for all Canadians is available by phone and text at 988. Senators and parliamentary employees are also reminded that the Senate’s Employee and Family Assistance Program is available to them and offers short-term counselling for both personal and work-related concerns, as well as crisis counselling.
This afternoon, we shall have two panels. In each panel, we shall hear from the witnesses, and then the senators around this table will have a question-and-answer session.
I will now introduce our first panel. Our witnesses have been asked to make a five-minute opening statement. With us today via video conference, from the Saskatchewan Advocate for Children & Youth’s office, please welcome Lisa Broda, Advocate for Children and Youth and President of the Canadian Council of Child and Youth Advocates; and with her is Marci Macomber, Director, Investigations and Systemics.
Also on this panel by video conference, from the Yukon Child & Youth Advocate Office, please welcome Annette King, Children and Youth Advocate and Vice-President of the Canadian Council of Child and Youth Advocates.
I now invite Ms. Broda to make her presentation, to be followed by Ms. King.
Lisa Broda, Advocate for Children & Youth and President, Canadian Council of Child and Youth Advocates, Saskatchewan Advocate for Children and Youth’s Office: Good afternoon. Thank you for the opportunity to speak on this important matter and to all the other witnesses for their contributions and significant work in this area.
I am joining you from Treaty 6 territory and the homeland of the Métis, and our work as council spans all treaty territories. In this work, we honour all First Nations, Inuit and Métis peoples.
I am addressing you today as both the Saskatchewan Advocate for Children & Youth as well as the President of the Canadian Council of Child and Youth Advocates.
Our council members are independent, appointed children’s advocates, representatives, and ombudsmen in the provinces and territories who hold explicit legislative mandates to protect the rights of children and youth who receive public services through individual and systemic advocacy. We work together to identify mutual concerns and address these national issues where we can.
In my comments as the president of the council around any national standards that may be legislated, I do not speak for my colleagues in Quebec as they do not typically comment on federal bills, which are outside of their provincial mandate.
The challenges and vulnerabilities faced by young people aging out of care — and Indigenous young people in particular — have been well covered by other witnesses to this committee. It is clear that young people leaving government care are not adequately prepared prior to their transition to independence and that their after-care support provided is often not sufficient.
This evidence is reflective of what we see in Saskatchewan and what council members see nationally. What I can add from our perspective as oversight bodies to the child welfare systems is that despite the best intentions of caregivers and those working within these systems, this lack of preparation is often a result of the significant instability young people face as they grow up in care.
Children and youth can experience frequent turnovers in caseworkers, which affects communication and planning for their needs. Young people also often experience multiple moves while in care, and youth growing up in group care face the additional instability of multiple paid caregivers coming in and out of the home and continuous turnover of staff in that area.
Although this study is aging out of foster care, other forms of care are increasing in use, such as extended family care and group care, and should therefore be considered.
Nationally, what we know from our advocacy and systemic work and from what we hear directly from young people on transitioning to adulthood reflects what other witnesses have already highlighted in that the transition must be earlier, longer and have increased flexibility.
While many provinces and territories have adequate policies for transitioning out of care, the reality of the practice does not always meet the requirements of policy. Across Canada, systems are challenged with recruitment and retention of experienced child welfare staff, particularly in rural, northern and remote communities.
While we often hear that frequent staff turnover and vacancies lead to burnout, which impairs the system’s capacity to meet policy standards or to ensure quality assessments of a young person’s needs, under-resourcing results in high caseloads, jeopardizing the time caseworkers have to provide support and guidance to youth approaching independence. Caseloads must be kept manageable so that youth consultation and relationship‑building can occur at every level and every step of the child welfare process.
Contact standards are also a key issue, particularly with youth aging out. At least in Saskatchewan, there are no required contact standards for young people in receipt of extended support services.
Despite child welfare falling under provincial jurisdiction, the federal government does have a role to play in remediating the challenges faced by young people aging out of government care.
Canada is a state party to the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child. Upon ratification of the UNCRC, Canada is legally bound to it within the sphere of international law and, therefore, is responsible to the international community for its implementation.
When Canada ratified the UNCRC, it did so with the agreement of all provinces. Therefore, all levels of government in Canada have a shared legal and moral obligation to protect, respect and fulfill the rights of children as codified in the UNCRC.
The preamble of the UNCRC indicates it was developed on the foundation that “. . . the child should be fully prepared to live an individual life in society . . . .”
There is an onus on the federal government to do all it can to collaborate with other levels of government to ensure its obligations to children under the UNCRC are met. That includes implementing the concluding observations of the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child, which call for the development of some of the mechanisms for change already recommended by other witnesses to this study.
Young people in care maintain their rights to an adequate standard of living, equal access to higher education, the highest attainable standard of health and so on after their eighteenth birthday under other international treaties and under the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples Act, which guarantees special measures to Indigenous youth in this regard.
The committee has heard from previous witnesses that national standards for transitioning from care are needed. It is important to ensure all youth have access to the same level of service no matter where in Canada they reside, while respecting jurisdictional boundaries. But in order for additional standards to be adhered to, the systems responsible must have enough human resources to do this important work.
With this in mind, our recommendations to this committee are to broaden the scope of its study to include young people aging out of all types of government care.
We suggest federal government collaboration with provincial and territorial governments to increase human resource capacity and ensure a qualified, adequately supported workforce within child welfare systems. An example of this could be a shared targeted funding agreement for human resources and training, similar to what is provided through bilateral agreements to improve health care services.
We also suggest the federal government implement the longstanding recommendations of the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child for disaggregated data collection to allow for comprehensive monitoring of children’s rights, and also to establish an independent mechanism at the federal level for monitoring children’s rights, such as a national commissioner for children and youth.
Lastly, to adopt a national strategy for children and youth that provides a framework target for all levels of government, while enabling the provinces and territories to adopt, accordingly, their own specific plans and strategies.
I wish to thank you again for this opportunity to present. We appreciate being here today and certainly will be open to some questions. Thank you.
The Deputy Chair: Thank you, Ms. Broda.
Annette King, Children and Youth Advocate and Vice-President, Canadian Council of Child and Youth Advocates, Yukon Child and Youth Advocate Office: Thank you for having me as well. My name is Annette King, and I am the child and youth advocate for the Yukon.
In the Yukon context, we have 14 First Nations. Eleven are self-governing, which is a unique context in terms of how the territorial government works with the First Nation governments and also with the role of the federal government. Whitehorse is the primary city, which is on the traditional territory of Kwanlin Dün First Nation and the Ta’an Kwäch’än Council.
Our act was passed in 2009 directly out of the Child and Family Services Act, as a recommendation in that act that came out in 2008. Therefore, we know that the reason we exist as an organization is to address the challenges and vulnerabilities for children in the child welfare system primarily.
We really appreciate the opportunity to discuss and hear about positive practices in provinces and territories and the appropriate role of the federal government.
As the vice-president of the Canadian Council of Child and Youth Advocates, I’m not here to speak on all jurisdictions, but I am in my tenth year at that table so I can tell you that this has been a big topic for the whole decade that I know of it. It is a lot of common ground between the provinces and territories, with unique situations, particularly different laws and legislation as they relate.
In the Yukon, children can be in care up to age 19, and in the most recent revisions to the Child and Family Services Act, there is now eligibility for post-care supports until age 26.
Locally, we have been addressing this issue through our individual work on a daily basis as well as individual advocacy work case by case for specific children and youth and making sure that they have representation with decision makers. We have also been addressing it systemically. Publicly, we have released a video on aging out that was developed by a youth who was from care and left care. Then we released a report called Empty Spaces — Caring Connections, and that looked at all the different issues in the child welfare system. Our recommendations primarily come from there.
We have also been heavily influenced by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission as well as the Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls 2S+Calls to Action and a local strategy for the Calls to Justice in that area.
Additionally, there is a territorial youth strategy in the Yukon where young people have a loud voice in influencing government priorities, and all levels of government — First Nations, municipalities, all three territorial parties and the federal government — have signed on to that strategy. We take a lot of guidance from our young people.
In the Yukon, we have seen many different changes, particularly because the act changed or has been amended and is really trying to incorporate the principles that were in Bill C-92. It is a little different in the Yukon how that is incorporated, but it is about trying to make sure that First Nation governments have that partnership.
But regardless of the changes in legislation and policy, it is the practice that matters. There are ongoing failures in practice and the need for oversight is continuous.
As Dr. Broda has stated, these have been compounded by a high turnover in all levels in the child welfare system right from front line to leadership. We don’t see a consistent standard of care for children in any of the areas — lots of burnout, lots of workers leaving, lots of people leaving the territory and coming from different jurisdictions and not being aware of our territorial context. We are constantly dealing with that and making sure that the children have the ongoing standard of care which really relates to UNCRC Article 25 and making sure that right to have your care reviewed is considered.
We have seen some creative initiatives and alternatives and solutions with good intentions and a reconciliation lens. Sometimes they are good. I would love to go into many examples, but I think there is an intention to try to not have kids in care or to try to help kids leave care younger into a family situation or putting them on a youth agreement and creating independence even younger. Sometimes those have unintended consequences that create different problems. So I think whenever decisions are made, we really are recommending a full child rights lens and analysis of the solutions. You don’t want to just fix one problem but create another one.
Part of it is how children are placed in the first place. We have had a longstanding issue of siblings being disconnected, children being moved from communities, having lack of cultural connection, and how children are placed in the very first place is significant to how they can leave care with those cultural connections, those community anchors and the cultural plans.
Having youth participation as part of the case planning and supports right from the beginning is really important as well. We have had some success in our individual advocacy work for that.
The support for children aged 16 to 19 in our system is also really important because those kids don’t actually want to be in care anymore. That support and developmental capacity that is required at that time is really important.
Permanency planning used to be a term that was used —
The Deputy Chair: Excuse me, Ms. King. I allowed the previous speaker to go six minutes, and now you have gone past the six-minute mark. I hate to interrupt you, through the Q & A, I think you’ll be able to give us the other information that you hold.
Ms. King: I have completed it all other than a couple of recommendations.
The Deputy Chair: Okay. Let’s hear your recommendations then. Thank you.
Ms. King: Like I already said, increase the child rights lens, including youth participation in all decisions. Continue the oversight. Review interjurisdictional issues for children and youth leaving care. There is a lot of interprovincial migration, particularly for Yukon children. A national commissioner for children and youth. We see that gap and there isn’t anybody representing the federal issues.
Let us know if you would like to present to a Canadian Council of Child and Youth Advocates meeting or if you would like more connection to the rest of our advocates, and Dr. Broda and I can discuss how that might look.
The Deputy Chair: Thank you both for your presentations.
We will now proceed to questions from senators. Colleagues, you will have five minutes for your question, and that includes the answer. We have a list here, and if you want to be on the list and are not, please let us know.
[Translation]
Senator Gerba: My question is for both witnesses. Previous witnesses have explained here that it would be much better if young people leaving the child welfare system could benefit from a personalized approach based on their needs, not their age. Do you agree with this suggestion?
[English]
Ms. Broda: I think we would agree that what’s really important here when young people age out is that they have an opportunity to have proper planning, and that planning has to consider all of their needs and vulnerabilities. I think we have all agreed nationally that there is not one plan that’s going to fit every young person. In fact, I think I said earlier in my statement that young people will say to us, “A month ago, I was a kid, and now I’m 18 years old and am supposed to go do all these things, and I may not be ready. I may not be ready at 21.” So how do we ensure that any planning that happens for that young person is going to recognize their vulnerabilities and recognize the needs that they have, and there is not one plan. I think that’s an important question to be asking.
Ms. King: I would say about children’s rights, Article 2 is the general principle of non-discrimination. Whenever we make any policy specifically based on age, we must consider that that can be discriminating.
Article 3is best practices. If you really look at what “best practices” means, it is considering all the factors that could consider those individualized impacts on a child.
Article 12 is youth participation. If you look at asking the child what they need at that time and making assumptions about a child’s ability without incorporating their view, it often gets us into trouble.
Like Dr. Broda said, youth are telling us what they need. I had a 23-and-a-half-year-old youth saying, “You have been my parent since I was two, and now what? You are done taking care of me? I need help.”
When they need help the most, especially in post-care agreements, that’s often when they get the least amount of resources. The resources are more in place for the kids who are succeeding.
[Translation]
Senator Gerba: Is that something you would like to recommend as part of any national standards the federal government might implement?
[English]
Ms. Broda: The national standards are important as long as it is considering the jurisdictional boundaries, because we all have different sorts of legislation. It is all provincially and territorially driven. I think that it would have to consider that. One of the recommendations I said earlier was maybe having some kind of collaboration with the federal, provincial and territorial governments about how to do that would be the first step.
Second, if there is some kind of agreement, such as with mental health services and health services generally, the federal government has had those bilateral agreements with framework conditions set out so the provinces could deliver. So with conditions, that might be a way to have standards that will actually be meaningful for the provinces and territories and give the support that’s needed against the backdrop of all of the issues were highlighted between me and my colleague Ms. King.
I don’t know, Annette, if you have anything else to say, or Marci.
Ms. King: Go ahead, Marci. I don’t have anything to add to that. Thank you, Dr. Broda.
Marci Macomber, Director, Investigations and Systemics, Saskatchewan Advocate for Children and Youth’s Office: I would add, going back even just to the previous question, that different jurisdictions across the country have different ages for aging out of care but also for when post-majority services end. That’s pretty telling, the arbitrary ages, and that there is no consistent decision across the country as to when childhood ends or when the need for support ends. So to have it be a more readiness based approach versus an arbitrary age approach would be really helpful.
As Dr. Broda said, in jurisdictions like Saskatchewan, where you age out of care at age 18 and then your post-majority services typically, unless you are eligible for federal supports, end at age 21, if there were to be additional standards or if there was to be support put in place longer, case workers are already struggling to meet existing policy standards and existing connections with those youths. As Dr. Broda said, it could be helpful to have some sort of federal government involvement to help address those struggles that the systems themselves are facing.
[Translation]
Senator Gerba: Thank you.
[English]
Senator Arnot: I have a couple of questions for each witness, so I’ll go quickly.
Dr. Broda, how does your office involve youth directly in policy development or feedback on foster care services? Can you share some examples where youth perspectives have led to significant change?
Second, with mental health being a critical issue among youth in foster care, how does your office work with health agencies to ensure that young people have access to culturally responsive and trauma-informed mental health services?
Ms. Broda: With the first question, I’m sorry, Senator Arnot, how do we access young people’s voices?
Senator Arnot: In policy development. How do you get the feedback from youth to comment on foster care and identify gaps, et cetera? Can you share any examples of positive changes or significant changes being made in response to the identification of those issues?
Ms. Broda: We have a Youth Advisory Council at our office here where we seek youth voice in policy changes that matter to them and that we want them to have a voice in. With respect to all policy that impacts them, we want our young people to have a voice. Since I have been appointed and in my tenure as advocate, that is something we have been doing.
One of the other things that we do is when we did the state of the nation report on mental health services in Saskatchewan for young people, in our report called Desperately Waiting, we talked to over 150 young people out of the almost 500 stakeholders we spoke to for that report to get youth voices around their mental health and what they need. We asked basically what’s working and not working and what they need. They were telling us about all the gaps that we know exist in mental health services.
One of the other ways we do it is we pay close attention to what’s happening in the United Nations for the Committee on the Rights of the Child. At that level, when they are asking for feedback on something the day of general discussion, we ask for young people’s feedback. It wasn’t just our province. Alberta participated, as well as young people from Nova Scotia, so we had an East and West youth voice in telling the UN about how it is for young people to be in care and transition out of care.
Those are some examples of what we do.
Senator Arnot: Any comment on mental health issues by children who are in foster care and culturally appropriate? I’m thinking of the high incidence of Indigenous youth in the Saskatchewan child welfare system and trauma-informed mental health services. That’s a follow-up to Dr. Broda.
Ms. Broda: Thank you. We know that currently, 82% of children and youth in child welfare are Indigenous. When we did our report on youth suicide and went north to garner voices of Indigenous youth on the topic of suicide and what their needs were, certainly culturally appropriate planning around mental health, having cultural supports, having elders in schools, having more supports for young people in the North, remote and rural, to help young people with that.
For all children and youth, especially since COVID and the impact of COVID, we see that the services are still a challenge. We are seeing some inroads with respect to some of the recommendations out of our Desperately Waiting report, particularly around a child strategy in Saskatchewan, but also some other things they’re doing to try to meet those recommendations by bringing services into schools. One example is the Mental Health Capacity Building model that has been piloted and now expanded to other schools. That is part of that.
With the vulnerabilities of children, what’s important there is trauma-informed practice, culturally informed services and services generally for young people and a variety of modalities, because not all kids will want the service the same way.
One of the biggest barriers that we have seen out of that work here in this province — and we have talked about this, all of my counterparts across the country nationally — is that when a child moves from 17 to 18, the transition out of youth mental health services into adult services has been significant in terms of a barrier and them telling their stories over and over and over again to other mental health professionals. That has been a significant issue for young people and their transition. That impacts also young people transitioning generally, because we know that’s a barrier they face.
Senator Pate: Thank you to the witnesses.
On Thursday of last week, I attended a class at Carleton. It was a class for young people who are trying to get into university, a transition year class. I was struck by the number of young people who had been in care who were there. The very first question I got asked was: What could the Senate do for young people aging out of care? One young man described being given, by a social worker, a plastic garbage bag with all of his belongings and wished good luck when he reached the age of majority. He talked about the very real challenges that created, not just for him. The number of young people nodding in the class was striking to me. It was an all-too-familiar situation.
We know that during the pandemic, many jurisdictions provided a moratorium on aging out of care. I’m curious as to what each of you, within your respective jurisdictions, learned from that and what recommendations you would have to this committee.
It is great to have a commissioner for children, and it is great to have the Convention on the Rights of the Child, but when you have countless examples like the one of the young man last week, what would you be recommending that we recommend and put in place in terms of how we use federal spending power or the regulating options we have available?
That is for each of you.
Ms. King: First, on the point of the moratorium on leaving care, that was very significant. Even just speaking from an individual case perspective, I can think of a few young people who could breathe for a second. We were all just so grateful that this was in place for them, including the frontline workers. I do not want to demonize the people trying to do this work who are staying in the jobs. They were so happy to be able to continue the care that they knew these young people needed. I would like to say that I hope there are more individualized opportunities for that.
It is always interesting when the government says no to something. We know there is a federal reimbursement that happens anyway. I do not quite understand how it becomes a money issue. I do not know sometimes where these decisions are made in terms of, “This is our policy and we are sticking to it. No, no, no, we are not going to do that.” I think of having the values supported to look at young people individually and having them speak on what they need.
The garbage bags is appalling and is still happening. I have had volunteers come to me and community organizations saying, “Can I buy a bunch of gym bags for kids leaving care?” There has to be a better way. There is no reason that cannot be built into a budget to help young people leave in a meaningful way.
And can we not do it on their nineteenth birthday? Why does it have to be a birthday? “Hey, here is your cake. See you never.” That is the reality for young people. Carrie Davis tells her story, very detailed, in the video released called Ageing Out. We can do so much better on that.
Our Public Interest Disclosure Commissioner on wrongdoing in the Yukon did a review of how some kids were leaving care. It shows that as well.
I will stop there, unless there is something else specifically you would like from our perspective.
Ms. Broda: I will comment as well. I’m in an office full of glass and now I am getting the glare that the tech told me that I should not have.
I will circle back around to the concluding observations and the rights of children because, if Canada upholds those obligations, then Canada will do a better job of helping support the provinces and territories with the supports that are required in each province and territory to help change the landscape of young people who are being handed garbage bags. I agree with my colleague — and I know we would all agree across the country — that that is the worst form of undignified treatment that we could give young people as they are transitioning.
The rights of young people are important here because we ratified those rights. I know we all know that here at the table. I also do believe that, systemically speaking, systems need to shift, adapt, stop reacting and support, rethink and reimagine what the system could look like to support young people from beginning to end, not just on their way out the door. Again, I also echo what Ms. King said about we do not want to demonize the workers who are trying hard, but they are up against a system that is failing. We see that over and over again in various aspects of child welfare, not just transitioning out. Supporting the systems to shift change and provide that level of resources required to help those young people will mitigate the garbage bag example, undignified in that all it is.
The Deputy Chair: I have a question I would like to ask. It is sort of connecting the dots around aging out, that particular birthday, and mental health.
I am a social worker. One of the first cases that I ever worked with in my career, which started in a mental health facility, was that of an 18-year-old young, African-Nova Scotian woman who had been in care from the age of 3 to 18. On her eighteenth birthday, she was given the garbage bag, told, “Happy birthday,” and, “You have to leave this home.” She was in the same home for those 15 years, but it was a home in which she experienced every form of abuse imaginable. In response to what the worker was telling her in terms of, “Now you have to leave this home,” she attempted suicide. She was admitted to the mental health facility where I was working. I was not working with her. There were very few people of African descent working in that system. Somehow, I found myself working with her. It was challenging because the supports weren’t there.
I heard each of you touch on that whole mental health piece this evening. I was particularly moved by the comment that the youth who get supports are those who are doing well. Those who are not doing so well are not likely to get supports in the current systems we have across the country. Can you talk about how you think having national standards might help prevent this kind of “goodbye, good luck” transitioning that we have seen over time?
Ms. King: One of the things I see when I have done some review of different jurisdictions’ transition policy or legislation is that they are very broad and not descriptive. In ours, it is that there will be a transition support agreement developed with these standards or with some basics. They aren’t detailed. Then the policies are where more detail comes. Does the child, the youth, have to contact some random worker to access the service, or will someone do outreach to let them know that it exists?
It is changing a little bit here in the Yukon because they are realizing this, but, in general, they go off the radar for a little bit. They say they know they are eligible for agreements but they have not called. The kids who need it the most are not necessarily going to call you, the people that they are mad at who have kept them away from their family for this whole time. The outreach piece would be a recommendation. If we looked at standards, it could be something to do with national standards on how to interpret the small piece of legislation that relates to these transitional support agreements.
Ms. Macomber: To add, something that the council heard when they were doing their day of general discussion for youth in alternative care for the UN was that young people wanted more in-depth and sustained follow-up supports by caseworkers after leaving care, not just getting the in-depth support and guidance while getting ready to leave care but, in fact, having regular follow-up afterwards. They told us that sometimes they need the support more as an adult because so much is coming at them so fast, things they may not be prepared for.
Dr. Broda mentioned this already, but at least in Saskatchewan there are no contact standards for youth receiving post majority supports, but they wanted those supports to be continually keeping in touch with them, ensuring that they are okay, seeing if they need help navigating the challenges of adult life. That could be a national standard.
The Deputy Chair: Thank you.
Senator Arnot: I will stay with Saskatchewan. Ms. Macomber, part of your duties as Director of Investigations and Systemics is to identify systemic issues for those children receiving certain services. From your experience, what are the common systemic issues that child protection services see that affect the long-term well-being of youth aging out of care?
Second, when your investigations reveal gaps in services or systemic failures, what strategies do you use to encourage agencies to implement recommended changes? Does your agency have challenges in ensuring compliance with the recommendations being made?
Ms. Macomber: Thank you, Senator Arnot, and certainly, Dr. Broda, jump in with that if you need to.
In terms of the question of systemic issues affecting the long‑term well-being of children and youth in care, one thing I can say — said by other witnesses throughout the study as well — is the level of attachment they need. In order for young people to grow, thrive and develop to their full potential, which is a right under the UNCRC, they need to feel a sense of connectedness and belonging, and there needs to be those relationships built. Dr. Broda spoke about the significant instability that is often inherent in the child welfare system, whether it be multiple moves within placements; caregivers who are overloaded, no matter how well-meaning they are; or a frequent turnover in case workers. People have told us they never know who their case worker is, how to get in touch with them or what the plan is. Having their voices heard throughout the process can impact their well-being as they move forward in their care and as they transition out.
To speak to the question of what strategies we use to get our recommendations implemented, in Saskatchewan at least, we regularly monitor our recommendations to government. We hope they will let us know if they have accepted them, partially accepted them or declined. Typically, they always accept them because we are all trying to move the dial forward for child and youth well-being. We do regularly monitor those and ask for progress reports in terms of how they are implementing the recommendations. If, for any reason, there is a stall or if progress is not being made, our act does allow us the opportunity to report on that, which is a helpful tool.
Dr. Broda, is there anything you wanted to add to that?
Ms. Broda: No. You covered it in its entirety.
The systemic issue we’re seeing that is most prevalent across the country with the advocates, representatives and ombudspersons for children and youth is the practice issue, more particularly. Ms. King highlighted earlier that she has been at our table and in the Yukon for the last 10 years. I have also been around for about that long. Certainly, youth aging out has been a longstanding and persistent issue. Also, in spite of good policies and the good work that the people on the ground are trying to do, we still see the practice issues impeding better outcomes for youth who are transitioning.
We try to work to help support the ministries through recommendations and the things we speak with them about. As you know, we will take a non-adversarial approach to this; however, at times, we might speak out in the public interest on these matters as well because they are matters that need to be put out publicly so we can figure out the best way to address them and have the public know about what is happening with our young people.
That is all I will add at this point. Certainly, we have a lot of success with our recommendations, but sometimes we face barriers also with those as well.
Senator Arnot: Ms. King, you are an advocate with strong roots in the Yukon. What are the unique challenges of Indigenous youth aging out of care in Northern and rural areas? What are they facing that is unique?
Ms. King: The most significant thing is the intergenerational effects of residential schools. The families often feel like their child has left the country when they go into care. We have heard group home workers or foster parents say that they would welcome that family, but it does not work like that. If there is a transition back to the community, it can be very challenging because there is a perception of a bigger divide than there actually physically is. Then all of the cultural harm that happens with being in care adds to the layers of mental health issues, but they are also generational layers.
Article 39 of the UNCRC is tucked in near the end, but it is probably the most significant one in my career. It is making sure that children and youth who have been harmed have opportunities for recovery and healing. When we look at aging out of care in a culturally appropriate way, it has to have a strong healing lens that looks at the individualized part of a collective.
Senator Pate: Thank you to both of you.
I would be interested in what best practices you have seen in jurisdictions not just in Canada but internationally. I know in some jurisdictions, within Canada as well as internationally, there is the idea of looking at putting resources into homes or communities, so when the issue is in the home, sometimes taking out those who are the challenges in the home, whether it is the parents or somebody else in the home, and providing supports. I know that Wales has been doing a basic income initiative for young people leaving care. There have been some discussions in some jurisdictions here. What are the approaches that you would recommend as best practices that you have seen, or promising ideas if they have not actually been implemented?
Ms. Macomber: In terms of best practices, in Saskatchewan, we do have some helpful resources. We have the Saskatchewan First Nations Family and Community Institute that is a non‑profit organization with funding from the ministry to support child protection workers and agencies. They do have a number of resources that are helpful in terms of transition resources on issues like education, transportation, rights and the law and how they impact young people. They have checklists they go through that involve in-depth conversations with young people to ensure that those conversations have been had and checked off and that young people understand what they are being guided through. The concern with that is that case workers do not always have the time to do and implement that. So although it is a good resource out there, case workers are overloaded with so many other issues, and that is why we continue to hear from young people that they do not feel properly prepared. That is one thing.
Also, we have not had the time to do a deep dive into this, but as far as something that looks promising, the Scottish approach has some interesting elements to it. They focus on providing care leavers with a sense of connectedness and belonging by connecting them to community supports before they have aged out of care. They focus on needs-led assessments and try to allow young people to remain in their placements if they are positive placements. That said, one situation has been described here today where placements are not always positive, no matter how stable they are, and that has to be taken into account. They also have legislation and policies around corporate parenting that place duties on a number of not just caseworkers but agencies to work together to support youths’ holistic needs. So although we cannot say we are necessarily recommending that — because I haven’t been able to do a deep dive — it sounds promising.
Ms. King: For me, the one that would be the most significant is the proctor family model, which I know is somewhere in Canada at some times, which is where the parent is in care with the child or there is a lot of support in keeping that relationship to whatever degree is safe and then building on that capacity. There are some issues with it, but I think that is the value base I would consider the best practice — where the child maintains connections, attachments and culture. Then you work on permanency planning in that context rather than removal and then trying to repatriate a child into a community that should have been a part of them the whole time.
In the Yukon, there is a fair bit of federal money coming in for First Nations to provide family preservation. It is making a big difference in the prevention sense where gaps are being filled with less red tape for families to get those immediate needs supported and addressed. Jordan’s Principle has also provided significant changes and support for many families up North.
I will stop there. I could come up with many, but that is where I think it needs to go.
[Translation]
Senator Gerba: Thank you to our witnesses for their contributions. I’m going to put my question to Ms. Broda. Several times in your presentation, you stressed the importance of establishing shared initiatives and working collaboratively with the provinces and territories. Could you explain what form this cooperation and collaboration between the federal government, the provinces and the territories should take?
[English]
Ms. Broda: If I understand your question, when you speak in terms of common initiatives, with respect to this particular issue — and similar to other times where we have had emergency meetings of child welfare, as happened in 2018 where the federal government called all the provinces and territories to the table to have a collaborative session around what to do about what is going on in child welfare and some of the issues we were seeing then, which was pertaining mainly about prevention, intervention standards and different things like that — when we are talking about collaboration from our view, of course, we have commented on Senator Moodie’s national child strategy bill as a framework bill. Whatever happens there is that it is ensuring that collaboration with the governments on a strategy for children if that were to go forward.
In this case, if the committee is looking for how we can address aging out of care, that same kind of collaborative approach would be important because the provinces and territories, as I mentioned earlier, have such different legislation. Any common practice, conditions or standards that could come out of a collaboration like that and would lead to some kind of an agreement between and support from the federal government to the provinces and territories would be beneficial. The initial process would definitely include all of those who are responsible for those systems, but also those in the systems that could come to speak to the issues most effectively.
Ms. King was talking about repatriating young people after they go south, because that is where they end up. Along those same lines, the interjurisdictional transfers of young people between provinces and territories has been such a huge issue that we see, especially when a young person leaves their home community and province to a different province and then they are transitioning as they age out in a different province. Those are the kinds of things we should be talking about nationally, provincially and territorially together because we see huge issues just with that alone, when kids are moving back and forth, bouncing around between provinces and territories and not being followed. That could be an example of a standard, a way to define a common issue that would have a common and better outcome for young people in that case.
I am not sure if I am answering your question exactly.
Certainly, it would be great if the Senate committee were interested in actually talking with our council because of our jurisdictional authority and our ability to see what is on the ground and have more time for that. Hearing from every single advocate, representative and ombudsman for children would be beneficial if there is the desire of the Senate committee to do that. We could set that up for you to talk more about this.
Senator K. Wells: I wanted to pick up on the question related to the recommendation for disaggregated data. Would you have a current sense of how many young people in your jurisdictions identify as part of the 2SLGBTQIA+ community and if there would be a need for specific recommendations or strategies to assist these young people when they are aging out of care to connect to communities or find support? That question is to both of you.
Ms. Macomber: In Saskatchewan, I do not think that has been quantified specifically. I know we have heard from a number of witnesses throughout this study that there isn’t that level of data collection, at least not nationally. Within even the provincial system, I’m not sure that is collected in Saskatchewan. It may be, but I do not think that it is.
As far as having disaggregated data, you talked about whether there is a need for a strategy to address the needs of the 2SLGBTQIA+ individuals, and definitely there would be. If we had that data, it would be even more reflective of the need for that. We hear qualitative evidence from young people who are gender and sexually diverse about how their needs are not necessarily being met in terms of transitioning out of care. They have many worries about how they will continue to meet their needs related to health, employment and things like that where they have some concerns. As I said, I do not think that data is currently collected, but there is definitely a need for that.
As Dr. Broda talked about earlier, one of the recommendations for Canada from the Committee on the Rights of the Child is for improved data collection efforts that are disaggregated on the basis of age, sex, disability, geographic location, ethnic and national origin and many other things that would allow us to identify where the needs are so that we could put efforts into those areas.
Ms. King: In the Yukon, we do not have that data.
When the Child and Family Services Act was recently being reviewed, I provided them the Alberta report on sexual orientation and gender identity for children in care, which I’m sure, Senator Wells, you are familiar with. I said it is essential that this is considered in our policy. But it is not addressed well. In our office, we are currently doing a systemic review of SOGI policies in education, so maybe out of there I could make recommendations for a review for kids in care. I’m not sure.
The data is very weak, but the experiences are there. In our Empty Spaces report, we did hear things like even just group homes that were segregated by gender and then there has been less indifference, but in terms of the aging out experiences, I will put my eyes to that now and see if there is anything and figure out what our research questions actually are.
Senator K. Wells: Thank you.
Senator Ross: My question is around the appetite of the various provinces for this type of consolidated approach and whether you have a sense that the provinces from coast to coast are interested in having some type of a federal overview for these aging out issues.
Ms. Broda: I do not know that I can answer that question myself. It might be a good one to ask the entire council, if we were together with the committee, to address. In Saskatchewan, they’ve made some important policy changes and some legislative changes to recognize the age of protection up to age 18 and certainly in care to 21 — that’s recent — and special measures for Indigenous children. But that is a question to still be answered. I cannot speak, myself, for the rest of the provinces and territories. Annette can speak for her territory. We would be willing to come back to the table, certainly. I do not know that we can answer those questions, anyway, in regard to governments’ appetite.
Certainly, with mental health and addictions, the bilateral agreement there was well received, so maybe there would be an appetite to come to the table, especially if there was some kind of agreement in place to have some overarching support for provinces and territories for child welfare to address some of the issues we have highlighted today and in my speech particularly. I think the Senate committee could ask provincial officials that question and get that sense from them as well.
Ms. King: I also can’t speak for our government representatives. My experience with government representatives, being from the Yukon, is that our situation is unique, so a national standard would not necessarily be that well accepted, particularly given our First Nations self-governing agreements.
That leads me to the question, where is the Assembly of First Nations on this issue? Is there a national conversation for children aging out of care, leaving care, at our First Nations and Indigenous tables? I’m curious about that.
Also, the FPT of child welfare directors is an important group. We would like to see more interprovincial and territorial collaboration there, particularly for the interprovincial migration but also for standards in how all the different approaches are working. I think that would be a table to connect with. Dr. Broda and I are trying to get to one of their meetings as well.
Ms. Broda: I would just add that any federal, provincial or territorial collaboration has to always consider the jurisdictional boundaries we also spoke to earlier as well.
Senator Ross: In terms of the scope of a study such as the one that this committee is working on, would you say the value would be in trying to find a national approach to things or to figure out what best practices are and simply share them? What do you think the best scope of this study could be?
Ms. Broda: I think there are possibly some limitations to this kind of study because of the fact that we are provincially and territorially driven. Child welfare is. I think the best practices model is definitely a way to go. I think your question is well taken that way, to examine that.
I wouldn’t want to not say the systems need support. There are significant challenges — I’ll speak for Saskatchewan, but I think we’d all agree across the country — right now in child welfare from a resource standpoint. Systems that are breaking down require support, and having some kind of federal support might be helpful. We don’t know what that would look like, clearly, but we are driven by our provincial mandates.
This kind of study will be a little more difficult in terms of the recommendations of the committee. Whatever the outcome of your study is in the end may be difficult to implement without the buy-in and the collaborative efforts between the federal government and the provinces and territories, and then recognizing, again, jurisdictional boundaries.
I do like the aspects of speaking about this, because it is a longstanding and persistent issue like many issues in child welfare that we’re seeing. Systems can course correct. We can rethink them. We can reimagine systems, and need to think that way because in some provinces, there are a lot of issues, not just this one. Particularly post-COVID, we are in an uphill battle here.
I think the recommendations we make, because we have the ability to make those recommendations under our authority, even if accepted, it won’t matter if we don’t have the resources in place to help address that. That system gap will be there regardless of what the Senate committee comes up with for their outcomes and recommendations based on everything you are hearing today.
The Deputy Chair: Thank you. We will have to stop there. We are out of time. I want to thank you all for your presentations and for your responses to our questions. Thank you for participating in this important study. Your assistance is greatly appreciated.
I shall now introduce our second panel. With us at the table, from the First Nations of Quebec and Labrador Health and Social Services Commission, please welcome Derek Montour, president; and with us via video conference, from Nunavut Representative for Children and Youth’s Office, please welcome Jane Bates, Representative for Children and Youth. I will now invite Mr. Montour to make his presentation, followed by Ms. Bates.
Derek B. Montour, President, First Nations of Quebec and Labrador Health and Social Services Commission: [Indigenous language spoken]
My English name is Derek Montour. As mentioned, I am here representing the First Nations of Quebec and Labrador Health and Social Services Commission. I am also here representing the Kahnawà:keShakotiia’takehnhas Community Services. I serve as the executive director there.
I want to start by thanking the creator for giving us this opportunity to be here today. We never know when our time is up and we get back to the sky world. I also wish to acknowledge that we are on the unceded territory of the Algonquin Anishinabe people. I am grateful to them for allowing us on their territory.
Thank you for granting us this time to present to the members of the Standing Senate Committee on Human Rights. Today, I will talk to you about the impacts that placement can have on First Nations children and the challenges associated with a child’s life after living in a foster family. I will also present some issues encountered with the Government of Canada and the Government of Quebec in terms of youth protection.
First, the over-representation of First Nations children in youth protection. First Nations children are overrepresented at all stages of the youth protection intervention process, whether we are talking about reporting, assessment, placement and so on. According to the First Nations/Quebec Incidence Study of Child Maltreatment and Serious Behaviour Problems Investigated by Child Protection Services in 2019, First Nations children were 4.3 times more likely than non-Indigenous children to have been placed outside of the home.
Second, consequences of placement on First Nations children. The placement of First Nations children outside their community often has irreversible consequences. The placement results in the breaking of ties between the child and his family and breaking of culture, and language, which could represent a disastrous social, cultural and linguistic break.
Most young people who were placed in non-Indigenous foster family return to their community from which they came when they reached the age of majority. These young people, who grew up without their families and points of reference, have lost, in most cases, their identity, culture and languages. They no longer have any, or very few at least, ties with their family or their community. They return broken and uprooted.
Third, in Quebec, the Quebec Youth Protection Act includes a section that requires the Director of Youth Protection to inform the community when a child must be removed from their family environment and placed in an alternative environment. Although this section has been in force since 2019, many communities have not been informed of the placement of children from their community.
For example, one community was not informed of the placement of 60 children outside of their home, outside of their community. Some of these placements were made permanently. Most of these children were placed in non-Indigenous families. Some have even been forbidden contact with their parents. The community was only recently informed because it has been exercising its jurisdiction over child and family services since 2020, and it is trying to collaborate with the institutions of the Quebec health and social services network for children who live outside the community.
The Youth Protection Act is clear on this subject. This type of situation is not supposed to happen. This is a glaring example of why communities are seriously considering creating their own laws regarding child and family services.
Fourth, First Nations’ vision of youth protection. The First Nations’ vision differs from that of the province of Quebec. The communities and families work together to prevent youth protection-related issues. We focus on solutions centred on the family rather than the individual. We work with families and not against them. Their children’s best interests are paramount. It is necessary to remain flexible throughout the youth protection intervention process to allow parents to mobilize and be stakeholders in solutions to resolve the issues they face, which is not the case with the Youth Protection Act. The Youth Protection Act places strict deadlines that may prove unrealistic to respond to and respect parents who have experienced multiple traumas and, often, multigenerational traumas.
Fifth, post-majority support services. Since April 2022, Indigenous Services Canada has been funding, at real cost, post‑majority support services for First Nations youth and young adults who are, or were, in the care of First Nations Child and Family Services until the age of majority. The same eligibility criteria apply for youth who are, or were, in provincial care and who ordinarily reside in a community. The funding aims to facilitate the transition to adulthood and is available until the person reaches the age of 26. Even though people who live outside the communities are faced with the exact same situation as those living in the communities in terms of over‑representation, this funding is not available to them. Considering this over-representation, it is imperative to ensure that this funding is available to all First Nations youth in care, regardless of where they live and where they are reported. For these services, it will be particularly important for provincial institutions to work closely with communities to develop and implement collaboration mechanisms.
It is also essential for those who work in the Quebec network to be informed of the services offered by First Nations communities themselves. This dialogue between communities and the province is vital to ensuring an effective continuum of services and the wellness of the youth who are or were in the youth protection system.
In conclusion, the reflections presented aim to highlight the challenges that First Nations youth experience in terms of youth protection in Quebec. Sustainable solutions must be put forward to resolve these challenges. This is why we invite the Government of Canada to review the funding of post-majority support services to ensure that these services are available to all First Nations youth, regardless of the family’s place of residence or the place of initial reporting.
Niawen:kowa.
Jane Bates, Representative for Children and Youth, Nunavut Representative for Children and Youth’s Office: Good evening. My name is Jane Bates, and I am the Representative for Children and Youth in Nunavut. The Representative for Children and Youth Office is an independent office of the Legislative Assembly of Nunavut. It is my office’s mandate to make sure that the services and supports offered and provided by the Government of Nunavut are ethical, equitable and consistent for all young Nunavummiut and their families.
I wish to thank you for the opportunity to discuss an issue of critical importance: the transition of young people aging out of government care. As someone who has been working in the child welfare field for more than 30 years, and across three vastly different provinces and territories, I am encouraged that a review of this matter is taking place.
I have seen first-hand, as numerous reports have highlighted, young people leaving care facing significant challenges, from sizeable gaps in post-care planning to inadequate supports and services.
While these are things that all young people need to ensure that their mental and physical needs are met as they transition into adulthood, it is even more imperative that young people leaving government care receive them as they already face heightened risks due to several critical factors:
One, history of trauma. Many young people in care have experienced trauma, abuse and neglect. Without adequate support, this unresolved trauma can often lead to emotional and mental health issues in adulthood.
Two, a lack of familial connections. Young people in permanent care often lack meaningful relationships with family or extended family, leaving them with limited or no support network as they transition out of care into equally important and formative years.
Three, the absence of a primary caregiver. For those in residential care, the lack of a consistent caregiver compounds the challenges they face upon aging out.
In Nunavut, Canada’s largest and youngest territory, over 30% of the population are under the age of 19, nearly 60% are under the age of 29 — youth in the eyes of the federal government.
Today, there are approximately 159 young people currently in care in Nunavut. Of these, 101 are subject to permanent care and custody orders that require permanency and transition planning for when they age out of the system.
While young people from Nunavut face many of the same critical factors as other young people in care across the country, there is also a variety of territory-specific complications and issues that place them at even greater risk when they age out of care.
One, inadequate data and planning. Reports from my office and the Office of the Auditor General of Canada indicate that the Department of Family Services here in Nunavut struggles to meet its basic obligations under the Child and Family Services Act, with gaps in tracking and planning for young people’s transitions.
Two, out-of-territory placements. Of the 88 young people placed outside Nunavut, 41% are in permanent care, which results not only in a loss of community and familial supports but a loss of language and culture. Without comprehensive support, many will face extreme challenges when they age out.
Three, limited legislative and procedural support. In Nunavut, a “youth” is defined in the Child and Family Services Act as someone aged 16 to 19. Under the same act, permanent care and custody orders are granted until the young person’s sixteenth birthday. Although this can be extended to age 19, this discrepancy in the act means that young people may be discharged as early as 16, effectively leaving them without any services or supports such as income assistance until age 19. The only known supports offered to young people in Nunavut ages 19 to 26 are extended support agreements.
I was fortunate enough that I was adopted at a very young age into a loving family and was not a young person in long-term government care. Years after I left home and well into my adulthood, I would seek out my parents when I needed support and guidance. I always knew I had a place to return to. When I was diagnosed with breast cancer two years ago, I returned to live with my family in Toronto. A young person who leaves government care often does not have a place to return to or trusted adults they can receive support and guidance from once they leave care, and they are largely on their own.
Discharging a young person based solely on age, without planning or support, violates our young people’s rights and the commitments made under the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child. The federal government must take the lead by establishing national standards for young people in government care. These standards should be based on the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child and should include standards for leaving government care and transitioning to independence. It is time for all levels of government to uphold the commitments made more than 30 years ago under the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child. Canada must protect all young people and ensure that their mental and physical needs are being met at all stages of life.
Thank you again for this opportunity. I look forward to answering any questions you may have.
The Deputy Chair: Thank you very much to both our witnesses.
Senator Arnot: Mr. Montour, you have been a long-time advocate for policies that respect and incorporate Indigenous perspectives. I wonder, what specific systemic changes do you advocate for within Quebec and Newfoundland and Labrador’s child welfare system to improve outcomes for Indigenous youth and to have those agencies respect Indigenous culture and traditional Indigenous knowledge?
Mr. Montour: First and foremost, we need greater collaboration from the Quebec government on recognizing and supporting the laws that we want to put in place for our own communities.
A lot of times, non-First Nations or non-Indigenous people kind of paint us all with one brush. What do the First Nations people want? The reality is that each community is very different than all the other communities. How we perceive ourselves and how see we our future and how our vision is encapsulated and the degree of progressiveness that some communities have over another one, some are remote and some are urban — there are all different realities.
Even now, the creation of Bill C-92 had created a pathway, but immediately resistance went up because of this idea of whose jurisdiction it is. Reality is provinces have failed First Nations people. We can all, I would hope, attest to that. How do we rebuild and fix some of the trauma and traumatic issues that have happened over generations? Part of that is us learning it ourselves, us reinvigorating our own languages and creating a garden of that.
Part of it is, to me, is that Quebec needs to — and Canada through its support and through other legislation, funding streams and the federal transfer agency — all of those come into play. We need collaboration.
We look at Obedjiwan, the first community in Quebec that created its own law. There hasn’t been a lot of partnership about it. That’s one of the communities that is highlighted in my report. That’s a big part for me, first and foremost.
The other one — I touched on it here, particularly because of the human rights complaint and now the funding that is coming in — is supporting the idea of building prevention programs within communities that have been lacking that non-Indigenous children have had access to for decades. We are starting to build those.
As we are building those, as challenging as it is because of lack of staff and building and infrastructure, all those things — you can have a million dollars, but if you don’t have staff and a building, you can’t do much with it. You need time to build those things. They have to be grounded in culture. Once that happens, the outside agencies, who are still apprehending children, need to be aware of it. That’s another aspect of partnership, not just recognizing our laws, but as they are doing actions for children who, as I mentioned, can get a long-term break from their community, there has to be a constant reconnection.
To me, these are systemic issues that can be addressed at a provincial level. It really is about partnership. Every local agency can do that.
[Translation]
Senator Gerba: Welcome and thank you to our witnesses. My question is for Mr. Montour. In your opening remarks, you talked about the irreversible consequences of placing First Nations children in care, including the breaking of ties with their identity and culture. How could this problem be fixed? How should we take this reality into account to improve care for young people leaving the child welfare system?
[English]
Mr. Montour: That is a very good question. It is very complex and complicated in the sense that it is an ongoing question that all of us are faced with. I can go into some history. I’ll try to be as brief as I can.
My father was an alcoholic, and I grew up in an alcoholic home. When you grow up in an alcoholic home, you learn certain behaviours. My father was a product of the Indian Day School system, as was I. He was an orphan when he was six years old. Trauma has been within our family. My father quit drinking at 11, and I started when I was 12. I quit when I was 29 years old. Since then, I have led a path of healing. Healing can happen, but it takes time and energy. All wounds that we have can be healed, but so much effort and support and love at the end of the day has to be put in place to support any individual going through that.
If we think of the traumas that First Nations peoples across Canada have suffered, part of it is how we start rebuilding support and fundamentally love within those structures to be able to support. As soon as you take a child away from the home in the idea of a child protection system — that’s the Anglo American system, England, New Zealand, Australia. It is all built on that model of the parents are responsible for what’s going on in the home.
The reality is that because the parents are victims of systemic discrimination and the system that Canada created, they are already traumatized, so we are supporting parents and grandparents and aunts and uncles, as well as the children at the same time. That is the only way that you are going to heal that part. You cannot have expectations to remove the child without working with the family as a whole.
There are a lot of good programs that talk about family preservation at the same time. HOMEBUILDERS is a good example. It started in 1974 in Washington. We’re trying to adopt that internally.
A big part is, how do you build systems that support that? Connection to culture is critical. If we are lost and do not know who we are as an identity, whether it is LGBTQ2+, whether it is what religion I believe in, what language I speak, how I perceive myself in the world — if I don’t feel as if I belong, then I’m lost spiritually. Part of it is rebuilding that connection and rebuilding those relationships.
If you have a child who is removed, I would rather see Canada and Quebec focus on how we build communities up to keep the children within the community, understanding that there is trauma within families and understanding within the community. But it is putting the supports in place there, reinstituting culture and giving those supports. All of that starts building in and, in the end, creates that.
The number one thing, senator, is time. It is going to take time to reverse the effects of this. That is the best way that I can put it.
Senator Gerba: Thank you.
Senator Pate: My first question is for you, Mr. Montour. Thank you for being here. Thank you, Ms. Bates. If I have time, I have a question for you. Otherwise, I will come back on second round.
As you are no doubt aware, the First Nations of Quebec and Labrador Health and Social Services Commission, in its regional consultation process on the reform of the Income Assistance Program, noted that the Income Security Program for Cree Hunters and Trappers, which was a form of guaranteed income, has been noted as a good example of a program that helps support culture and traditional activities. The report also stressed the importance of ensuring income supports are adequate to ensure people can rebound out of poverty instead of remaining trapped and in need.
As you know, one of the determinations from the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal in 2022 was that post-majority care be funded for First Nations youth up until their twenty-sixth birthday across all provinces and territories.
Are the amounts of money that are being provided adequate? Are they achieving the same sort of result as the Income Security Program for Cree Hunters and Trappers has? Is it a way that can help build the kind of capacity that you very importantly spoke about needs to be in communities? If not, what needs to happen? If so, what could we be recommending to improve that?
Mr. Montour: First, I would frame it that post-majority care service right now is an unknown for us. I say that because they are funded at cost in the sense that we need to put in a proposal on what we would like to propose as far as services for post‑majority care, and Canada approves it and then funds the services for it.
In Kahnawà:ke, for example, we created a program, and we had hoped for transitional housing, as an example. A lot of youths who were in care at 18 are left on their own with limited life skills. Many times, there are challenges with school, trade schools or other vocational programs. How do we help prepare them for life in the long run? We created a complete program in and of itself. We proposed it. We got support, and it was moving forward. Ideally, one of these days, we can build a post-majority residence for transitional housing. But it is at cost, meaning that we do not know what we will get next year. There is no guarantee. There is nothing to plan on it. It is, right now, whatever we are thinking of.
We know, of course, that there was a potential agreement between the AFN and the Chiefs of Ontario and the Nishnawbe Aski Nation, as well as Canada. We were all involved in the decision. It was unclear to me how much post-majority care would be funded long term after that and what that would look like and how that would move on.
To answer the question of whether it is sufficient or not, I’m not sure. For me, there is a lot of potential, but it is so new to us. They announced the funding, but it took so long just to get services thought of, created, proposed, get funding back, then hire staff and then try to find a place to put them. All of those have taken time. We’ve only really been operational in the last six months to a year. It is going to take time to establish that. We’re not getting support from the province in that way. It is all through the federal government.
For me, my hope is that whatever agreement comes on what post-majority care services are considered, that a funding stream is established, sustained and considers all First Nations youth. Part of it is that we only have our communities. Anyone who has been in placement is going to end up coming back to the community. Whether they are in placement now or from 18 to 26, how can we help transition them back? That is creating services and programs specifically. Without funding, you cannot do that.
Senator Ross: My question is for both of you. As you know, this study is looking at the issue of aging out of care, looking at various jurisdictions and looking at the various nuances of different sectors and specific issues. As the Senate looks at issues from a federal lens and perspective, what do you think would be a good outcome of this study that would help these vulnerable children on a federal level versus a provincial level? What would be the most beneficial scope for the results, in your opinion?
Ms. Bates: You asked, if I understand the question, what we think would be a good outcome of this particular study.
One of the main themes, when I reflect upon what needs to happen for young people and what needs to happen in child welfare, is the idea of collaboration and community. I believe that the best outcome is there needs to be an understanding and commitment to collaboration between provinces, territories and the federal government to make the system better, to acknowledge that it is not working.
I am going to digress here a little on what my colleague had said earlier. We often focus at the back end of the system as opposed to how we can be helping families. How are we preventing children from coming into care and requiring long‑term care? We are focused here on young people aging out of foster care, and it is an important issue, but I think we have to look to the beginning. How are we supporting families and communities for better outcomes for children? Again, one of the central messages needs to be that we need to collaborate. There needs to be collaboration. You need to look at the child welfare system differently. We need to reimagine what it should be, because, again, it is not working.
Senator Ross: Thank you.
Mr. Montour: I completely agree that the idea of collaboration is critical to the long-term success of our youth. Tripartite agreements and coordinating agreements between federal, provincial and the community itself are mechanisms that could be put into place.
I have to add that, for me, I would hope there is consistent and sustained long-term funding for post-majority care. The best way I can encourage Canada to think about it is that it is an investment. Why? If we could help youth who have been traumatized in their homes to such a degree that they have to be removed from the home and placed outside of their home — they are already traumatized. There is a potential loss of culture, language, relationship and family. How do we reconnect that? If we don’t put that effort in, the chances are that their children are also going to be in care. We have to put the work in now. That is when they are having babies, right? When they are 18 to 29 is a big part, if not before. Let’s support them in that process right away.
Funding had ended traditionally at 18. If we can look at a long-term plan that includes considerations for capital infrastructure, because you cannot do something without it; considerations of how to support language efforts. I say that because two weeks ago I was at the Official Languages Committee. Yes, English and French across Canada are recognized languages, but within our own community, we are struggling to maintain [Indigenous language spoken] We were colonized by the English. At the same time, all the laws said that even though we told you to speak English, now we are telling you to speak French, and meanwhile our language is disappearing. That is a big challenge when a young person is struggling with their identity and language, and they have to survive in these moving challenges.
Even recognizing our knowledge as critical, as opposed to, “You have to go to university; you have to go through our system in order to be recognized as professional and therefore get the same type of credentials.” Somebody who has been a medicine worker, who is a healer, who is a seer, all of those should be recognized as similar. It is lifelong learning, but it is not recognized in the same way. How do we change those systems that support that?
The Deputy Chair: Colleagues, in the interests of time — we have four senators on second round — we will reduce the time to four minutes each.
Senator Arnot: This question is for Ms. Bates. Given Nunavut’s unique cultural and geographic challenges, how does your office work to ensure that youth in care maintain connections to their communities, culture and language when they age out?
Ms. Bates: Thank you for the question.
Again, one of the things that my office does is we connect with young people through individual advocacy cases. We work very hard to ensure that, if there has been that loss of connection — which in many cases there has been, but we have parameters around confidentiality and those types of things — trying to make sure that the parents are involved when we are working through an individual advocacy case. Again, it is reimagining that. It is about community and collaboration. A young person is not going to be successful in their life if they are not connected with their family, if they are not connected — rightfully so, some families are not healthy, and it is not healthy potentially for that young person. But how do we still make those connections? We try, wherever possible, as I said, to include the parents and family in our individual advocacy work.
Again, we are not a front-line service provider. Really, what we are trying to do is to work with the departments to try to, for example, build transition plans, ensure that they are planning, ensure that they are informing parents, that they are working with parents on a reunification plan and on visits if the young person is out of territory. It is those types of things. We almost work indirectly in many ways. Really, it is compelling the department to make decisions that are in the best interests of children. What is in the best interests of children is trying to get them back to their community and working with that young person to build the skills and work with the family to address whatever concerns are keeping them outside of the family home.
Senator Pate: Just to finish off on what we were discussing earlier, I am interested, Mr. Montour, in whether the financial supports are also something that is being looked at in addition to the services for young people.
I will ask the question of Ms. Bates as well at the same time, because Nunavut, like the Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls inquiry, looked at the whole issue of basic income as a means of trying to assist in some — what sparked me to ask this is your discussion about preventing young people from being in care, and we know those kinds of supports can be crucial.
I am also curious how many of the agreements referred to can be — it sounds like renewable six-month agreements up to age 26, from age 16 to 26, if I read it correctly, that are available through Nunavut. How many of those happen?
Perhaps Mr. Montour and then Ms. Bates.
Mr. Montour: I will be quick.
Yes, there are direct and indirect costs that we can apply for. When I think of services, I think of the indirect services we try to put in place. More often than not they are coming to the community to try to access something. If we do not have the services available, they end up being lost within the system itself. That is what I meant, but yes, there are direct costs we are also applying and supporting.
The other thing is that I liked the idea of what you said about the Cree. For our community, for example, we were traditionally farmers. A lot of it is looking on the land in the sense of teaching skills with planting, growing and harvesting in those. Some of it is limited in there.
The other thing we need to consider, in trying to be creative with the resources, is those youth who are now even past 26 who have accumulated bills and things that are now putting them in a situation of debt. They are digging themselves into holes because of no other options and lack of knowledge; just ignorance. How do we help to support them in that way too?
Ms. Bates: You asked me about the extended care agreements.
Again, one of the things I said in my opening statement, and I will reiterate, is that the data collection here in Nunavut is not very robust. In fact, it is quite deficient. I have been the representative here for five years. I’m entering into my sixth year. Over the five years, I have asked the department to actively tell me how many agreements they have in place. For the first three years that I was here, they could not tell me. Up until recently, they could not tell me how many children they had in care. Yes, it is quite a shocking situation when you think about it. Only in January of this year were they able to tell me how many children, and who they were, were in out-of-territory care.
As part of our annual report, we request statistics from each department. One of the statistics that we request every year is, how many extended support agreements do you have? This year, the department reported that they had 32 agreements currently in place. You have to treat that number with a bit of suspicion, given the history. The year before, it was 35 in place.
Extended support agreements — again, it is based on the colonial system. Often extended support agreements — and this case is no different — require compliance from the young person. It is in the hands of the director, if you will, to negotiate those agreements, and if the young person is not compliant, if they are not doing what the director wants them to be doing or they are resistant, they can be cut off very easily, which is a major concern for me. You are also asking young people who have been subject to a lot of trauma who, in most cases, just want to be free. They’ve been told what to do for a very significant period of time.
The application of these extended support agreements is problematic. I feel that, although they offer supports, they are limited in the supports that they offer. Again, they are based on a compliance model, if you will.
The Deputy Chair: I wish to ask a follow-up question to your response to Senator Pate, Ms. Bates. You said there are a number of children in out-of-territory care. Does that mean that they are also in trans-racial placements? If so, what efforts are there in place to provide culturally responsive care for these children?
Ms. Bates: That is a very good question. Again, only this past January was the department able to actually tell me who these children are and where they actually were. I would say the high majority of children who are currently placed outside of the territory are in residential care. There have been many ongoing issues — as it has been widely reported — about cultural questions like: How do you keep connected to a community? How do you maintain your culture when you are living out of your community, out of the territory, away from your family, away from your extended family, and you are only allowed two trips a year to come back to your community, and that is only if the director is able to facilitate that, i.e. they have the staff. There are any number of issues that can come up.
One issue that we have been trying to address is ensuring that cultural plans are in place. On the list of issues we are trying to address, it is one of 100. Certainly, the young people in out-of-territory care has been of significant concern to us because the department, quite frankly, didn’t even know where they were, the majority of them. To say that they were in culturally appropriate placements? I suspect not. I know not. The department has put what they call a client liaison officer position in place in an effort to connect and to build cultural plans. We are monitoring that aspect of it at this point in time.
[Translation]
Senator Gerba: Ms. Bates, my question is for you. It actually builds on the questions asked by two of my colleagues. You both talked about the lack of connections between Indigenous children and their families, or even the complete absence of any relationship. Do you have any recommendations for measures that could be taken to ensure closer connections between families and children, especially children aging out of the system? Ms. Bates, perhaps you could start.
[English]
Ms. Bates: It’s a very complicated question. I do not think that there is an easy answer to it. Maintaining those connections — especially with out-of-territory care — is incredibly difficult. There needs to be a focus on maintaining young people in the community, being able to create placements in communities and maintaining them. Typically, in smaller communities, even if you are not with your family, your extended family is still around, and you can ensure those connections.
I am a big proponent in child welfare of family group conferencing, putting families in the driver’s seat, so to speak, when a child protection concern arises and having everyone come to a meeting to talk about what the concerns are. If my child has to go in out-of-home care, how can we stay connected? How are we going to make sure that your child is not being lost? It is putting the family, the extended family and the community members in that position to be making those plans — not the director or the institution making those decisions. We need to get back to the basics and talk about how we empower parents, family, extended family and community to be doing child welfare so that we can maintain those connections. It is a major, fundamental shift in thinking about child welfare.
Mr. Montour: If I may add, Kahnawà:ke has been delivering and had a delegated authority to deliver services for about 40 years now. Obedjiwan has just started because of Bill C-92. Other communities are not even there yet. Many directors of youth protection are taking decisions on the children in their communities and removing them, as we discussed today.
I would echo Ms. Bates’ comments that the solution is placement in the community so the investment of director review protection and all those centres jeunesse is about supporting and establishing foster-care programs in the community. Most often, they are not invested in the community and they do not know a home, so they place them outside. They are not taking the steps to work with the community to create a foster-care program that then establishes that.
I speak from experience because when we first started, prior to taking over, almost all of our placements were external. All of our placements now are internal except for special needs, because we have very limited ability to provide a foster home for special needs because of the depth of services that are required within it. Our next goal is to create that internally. That is going to create partnership between the feds, the province and the community in order to establish a 24-hour care service. There are many services that are required when you have special needs that support it. For that one, we’re getting support.
Group homes are all external. We do not have one internally right now. Part of that is a decision because we do not want to create a group home where parents would drop off their child and say, “Fix them.” It needs to be the whole family that is being supported in that way. That is our goal in that way.
Until we created our own foster-care program, developed foster homes, recruited, encouraged and provided ongoing support to those foster homes, that is the success that those communities will need.
[Translation]
Senator Gerba: I have a question about the results of the agreements you mentioned earlier with the directors of child and family services. Have those agreements ever been evaluated? What were the results? Should the federal government be doing more to support this kind of initiative?
[English]
Ms. Bates: I just want to clarify: Are you speaking about the extended support agreements?
Senator Gerba: Yes.
Ms. Bates: I do not think evaluating the agreements themselves is going to be a fruitful exercise.
An agreement is exactly that; it is an agreement that I will give you a service for this as opposed to a fundamental shift of how we view young people and families. Agreements, although good, are structured to offer you a service. It is not a family connection. It is not, “This is how I am going to maintain your culture.” It is, “I am going to pay for your rent and for those things.” I do not think that they are effective because they are service-based. It is not culturally or trauma-informed based. It is not saying, “These are what your emotional, physical and mental needs are.” It is not a comprehensive agreement. You need a plan. You need to see a person as a whole person and all of the parts. That is an important distinction.
We need to reimagine how we treat families, the services and the supports offered to families and to young people aging out of the system and currently in the system. It is hard work to make the connections and to deal with the trauma. We need to get away from the agreement situation.
The Deputy Chair: I wish to ask a question about intersectionality. Mr. Montour, you touched on that in your previous response to my colleague in terms of Indigenous children who might have some exceptionalities. Are they living with additional vulnerabilities? You have touched on that. I do not know if you have anything that you would like to add to that.
Also, Ms. Bates, do you have anything that you want to add to that? Looking specifically at Indigenous children with exceptionalities, are there unique vulnerabilities they or their families are dealing with?
Ms. Bates: With young people in Nunavut who have significant medical issues that require out-of-home care, they are largely all down South in out-of-territory placements. There is a barrier. They are completely disconnected from their family. How often are they seeing their parents and family and those types of things? I think they are additionally vulnerable because they cannot receive the services they require to maintain their health, and I think that puts them at a much higher risk.
I always say that a young person’s risk increases the minute they leave the family home. Then their risk increases again if they leave the community. Their risk increases again when they leave the territory. When I’m talking about risk, I’m talking about the familial connection, the supports, the trauma element — it all becomes interconnected.
The Deputy Chair: Anything to add, Mr. Montour?
Mr. Montour: Yes, absolutely.
I think special needs have a doubled number of challenges. Not only are they dealing with their special need, depending upon what their special need is, but if they are in a home that is also being challenged as a result of child welfare, then there are other types of traumas that are playing a part in it. Placements outside of that home with families that may not be familiar with that child’s challenges are doubly challenged.
Jordan’s Principle only lasts until 18, so after 18, they have specific needs that are not being met by Jordan’s Principle and may not be met through post-majority, depending on what those services are. Depending upon the connection back to community, they might be challenged.
There are limited resources to be able to put them in community, so they end up being placed externally sometimes. If we could put supports to keep them in their homes as long as possible and support them, then we are reaching success.
The challenge is when their caregiver starts becoming elderly or can no longer care for them. Then we have to place them again. Now they’re adults, sometimes nonverbal or sometimes only understanding English. If we don’t have resources in community, then it’s external, hoping for waiting lists and everything else. Sometimes, it is placement in a French-speaking resource, so now it’s a nonverbal person who may only understand English who is placed in a French home because that’s the only recourse we have.
Again, it is resources internally — they are just not there — so it is creating collaboration in order to start building that, and it is building it over time.
Absolutely, in all stages, they are challenged, depending on what their special need is.
The Deputy Chair: That brings us to the end of our time. On behalf of the committee, I want to sincerely thank both our witnesses for appearing before us this evening. Your testimony will be very helpful to our deliberations and study. Thank you.
Honourable colleagues and guests, the public portion of our meeting is now over. We shall suspend this meeting for a few minutes and then resume in camera to discuss an agenda item.
(The committee continued in camera.)