By Karen Nickel
Dialog Reporter
There is a case before the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal (HRT), in which the defendant, in an effort to put a stop to it, has spent over $3 million. The accused has been submitting requests to quash the charges since they were laid in 2007; before you get the impression that Canada is nobly standing up for human rights, I should tell you, the accused is the Government of Canada.
In 2007, the First Nations Child and Family Caring Society (FNCFCS) and the Assembly of First Nations (AFN) filed a complaint with the Tribunal claiming racial discrimination in the inequitable funding of First Nations child and family services on reserves. This inequitable funding leads to insufficient resources being made available for families in need of support and the complaint states it is a major reason that disproportionate numbers of First Nations children are taken into care when compared with the wider Canadian rate of apprehensions.
Cindy Blackstock, a social worker and executive director of the First Nations Child and Family Caring Society was instrumental in the complaint being made. Blackstock, a member of the Gitxsan Nation, worked both in First Nations agencies and non-First Nations agencies and saw the inequalities in funding and services First Nations children and families received and she spoke out about it.
In retaliation for bringing this complaint to the HRT; she discovered, (after submitting a Freedom of Information Request), that the conservative government had her under surveillance since the complaint with different agencies being involved in the monitoring. This fact has been added to the human rights complaint. She has completed her testimony before the tribunal, which began on February 25.
Canada has no comment about the surveillance and has repeatedly gone before the courts to stop this case from going forward. One claim is that they provide funding, not a service, and therefore are not subject to the human rights complaint process. The courts have denied this appeal, most recently on March 13.
Addressing Canada’s potential choices, Blackstock concluded her article for the Children and Youth Review, “the Canadian Government is faced with a choice that will test the moral fabric of the nation. Does it choose to continue to perpetrate racial discrimination against First Nations children or not?”
Blackstock ends the article with, “discrimination prospers in darkness and silence and wilts with light and voice”.
The tribunal reconvenes in April.
