This year marks Canada’s 150th year as a Confederation, however it is important to point out that it also marks 150 years of Canada’s history of colonization and assimilation policies.
 
It has been over ten years since the First Nations Child and Family Caring Society filed its complaint to the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal. The landmark ruling, released just over one year ago, found that the federal government has been racially discriminating against at least 163,000 First Nations children and their families by providing flawed and inequitable child welfare services.
 
In January 2016, the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal ordered the federal government to ensure that First Nations children have access to all the same public services that are available to other children in Canada and also ordered Canada to cease its discrimination towards First Nations children.
 
Sadly, Canada has not complied with the orders. Simply put, the government is failing First Nations children by not taking steps to improve their lives, which raises the question: why should these children have to wait for more studies and consultations to be completed before receiving the fairness they deserve?
 
In the final report of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, 94 Calls to Action speak to addressing discrimination as a means of making reconciliation possible in Canada. The first five specifically address the inequalities that Indigenous children face in the child welfare system. It is a sad reality that there are currently more Indigenous children in the child welfare system than there were under the control of the state at the height of the residential school system.
 
On February 14th of this year, there were 72 registered “Have a Heart” events in Canada and over 700 Indigenous and non-Indigenous children gathered and stood on the front steps of Parliament Hill to call upon the federal government to do the right thing. The children sang songs and read poems that called on the Prime Minister, the federal government and all Canadians to have a heart for First Nations children and to give them the equality that they deserve.
 
Children may not be experts in policy, but they are experts in fairness.
 
It is a sad reality that child and family service agencies on Indian Reserves get less funding than Canada gives to provincial agencies for caring for Indigenous children and that schools receive less funding than Canada pays to provincial school boards to educate Indigenous children off reserve. In fact, most First Nations communities do not even have access to clean drinking water – the most basic of human needs.
 
We do not want First Nations children to have to grow up in a country where their lives are less valuable than those of other Canadian children. First Nations children deserve the same opportunities as other children in Canadian society.
 
Today, we add our voices to honour the children who did not come home from residential schools, to the children who are currently in care, to the survivors who were victims of the Sixties Scoop, to the youth in Northern communities who have taken their own lives, to the families of the women and girls who have gone missing or have been murdered and to the youth, men and women who are currently in the prison system.
 
There needs to be systemic change in this country – now – and change begins with all of us, as Canadians and with the federal government.
 
We cannot allow First Nations children in this country to continue to suffer at the hands of the state. Canada knows what to do. The Canadian Human Rights Commission and Parliament have told them. Concrete action needs to be taken now.