B.C. proposes legislative changes to give Indigenous communities power over their own child welfare system

Changes coming to provincial legislation will clear the way for Indigenous communities in B.C. to have jurisdiction over their own children and family services.

Cowichan Tribes Coun. Stephanie Atleo said the amendments recognize the inherent right of Indigenous nations to protect, care for and nurture member children. 

"These changes represent a significant step toward reconciliation by recognizing for the last 150 years, the laws and policies regarding Indigenous children and child welfare have had a severe impact on Indigenous families, including our Cowichan families," said Atleo. "Cowichan Tribes is in the best position to protect our children through stabilizing and protecting families."

The modernized legislation will support the right of Indigenous communities to re-establish, develop and exercise child-welfare laws and recreate their own models for delivering family support, child protection and adoption services.

"We've known for far too long that Indigenous children, youth have been over represented in the child welfare system," Mitzi Dean, the minister of children and family development (MCFD) told On The Coast host Gloria Macarenko.

Dean said the changes align with the Truth and Reconciliation Commission's call to action and will help end the epidemic of Indigenous children and youth in care.

"The ministry will always be there to offer support, but the nation will be exercising jurisdiction and providing the services that they want to provide according to their culture and their customs and their teachings."

Union of B.C. Indian Chiefs Grand Chief Stewart Phillip said the legislation cannot be passed soon enough.

"The colonial era of the Province controlling child welfare must come to an end," he said. "It brings me incredible joy to think about this change in my lifetime and for my grandchildren and great-grandchildren."

In 2021, a group of of Gitxsan matriarchs, hereditary chiefs and community members blocked social workers from apprehending a six-year-old child.

At the time, Tracey Woods, the elected chief of the Gitanmaax Band described the situation as "no different than the residential school or the Sixties Scoop, where the MCFD comes in and removes the child from family and relocates them to unfamiliar territory."

Dean says First Nations have been expressing these concerns for a "long time."

Mary Teegee, chair of the Indigenous Child and Family Services Directors Forum and executive director of Child and Family Services at Carrier Sekani Family Services, said they've been asking for these changes for 20 years.

"We know that the MCFD system has not worked for our children or families," she said, adding that many Indigenous children in the child welfare system end up living on the streets.

"We're happy that there has been this movement. However, there's still a lot of work to be done."

Teegee said the amendments need to be based on substantive equality and self-determination. She described the introduction of the legislation as "Phase 1."

"I don't think that if it goes far enough to say that our Indigenous laws would be paramount and would be upheld for all of our citizens regardless of where they reside," she said.

According to the province, B.C. is the first province in Canada to expressly recognize the inherent right of Indigenous communities to exercise jurisdiction over child and family services.