Ontario First Nations approve $8.5B regional deal on child and family services reform

First Nations chiefs in Ontario overwhelmingly approved a carve-out deal on child and family services reform Wednesday in Toronto.

It comes after the Assembly of First Nations (AFN) rejected a $47.8-billion national offer last fall, with Canada currently refusing to restart countrywide talks.

The region-specific final agreement is worth $8.5 billion over nine years beginning in 2025-26, with the caveat that the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal (CHRT) must approve the settlement by March 31, 2026.

The Chiefs of Ontario (COO) and Nishnawbe Aski Nation (NAN) approved the settlement with 76 delegates voting in favour, four opposed and three abstentions out of 133 eligible First Nations.

"Today is an important day, but today is not about an individual. It is about our collective efforts in this region to advance the priorities that you have set out," Ontario Regional Chief Abram Benedict told the group.

"You have said to us, 'We need to stop the discrimination in our region. We need to bring the resources to our communities. We need to enhance our jurisdiction. We need to be able to support our families today — we can't wait for a national agreement."

The deal aims to partly resolve a human rights complaint filed by the Assembly of First Nations and First Nations Child and Family Caring Society in 2007.

NAN Grand Chief Alvin Fiddler, representing 49 northern communities, noted a resolution was a long time coming, telling the delegates that the "agreement and the work that we did to get here is for our kids."

Indigenous Services Minister Patty Hajdu joined the two First Nations leaders for a signing ceremony, with the trio looking on as drummers played a victory song afterward.

Hajdu acknowledged First Nations people have been widely impacted by a colonial system that used apprehension of children, division of families and theft of culture, language, land and tradition as a tool to undermine inherent rights, making the issue "deeply personal" in the room.

"This agreement today signifies that a whole new generation of children are not going to have to go through what many, many of you have gone through," she said.

Hajdu thanked Prime Minister Justin Trudeau for granting her the mandate to move forward in Ontario, after the original offer's rejection during a tense Assembly of First Nations meeting last October.

"I had to ask for that, and the prime minister had my back, but we're here because of the leadership of all of you," Hajdu said.

National talks at a standstill

Canada has so far rebuffed calls to secure a new national mandate for reform negotiations.

In a landmark 2016 decision, the CHRT ordered Ottawa to reform the on-reserve child welfare system, finding that systemically racist government funding practices were tearing families apart and shattering lives.

The case includes COO and NAN as interested parties, making Ontario the only region directly involved in settlement negotiations.

The delegates also passed a resolution Wednesday calling on the AFN and Caring Society not to interfere as Ontario chiefs ask the tribunal to approve the agreement, in the hopes it quickens the process.

"We're going to continue to march ahead and make progress, and I think our region is going to show the rest of the country the way," said Joel Abram, grand chief of the Association of Iroquois and Allied Indians.

Other regions like Quebec and British Columbia opposed the original offer in part because their chiefs felt it favoured Ontario. 

The AFN chiefs voted to set up a new entity, the National Children's Chiefs Commission, to take over the talks. However the new commission's chair told CBC Indigenous last week Canada refuses to meet with the group.

Frustrated rhetoric has also ratcheted up behind the scenes, with six AFN regional chiefs last month accusing National Chief Cindy Woodhouse Nepinak of failing to support the commission and letting Canada off the hook, which she denied.

Meanwhile, the other complainant, the Caring Society, has filed a motion at the tribunal to force Canada to restart national talks.

The Ontario settlement also includes unspecified federal funding commitments for administrative support, cultural humility training, program assessments and legal fees.

Ontario leaders have also reached a draft trilateral agreement to reforming the 1965 Indian Welfare Agreement, a cost-sharing arrangement between Ottawa and Ontario governing social service delivery in the province.

Chiefs have long argued the 1965 agreement laid the foundation for the state-sponsored apprehension of Indigenous children into foster care known as the Sixties Scoop, which began at the same time the agreement was signed. 

In its 2016 ruling, the CHRT found the agreement is racially discriminatory and must be reformed.