First Nations leaders urge Canada to renew national talks on $47.8B child welfare reform settlement

First Nations leaders are urging Canada to reconsider its decision not to renew national negotiations on a $47.8-billion proposal to reform the on-reserve child welfare system, after chiefs rejected the offer last fall.

Instead, Canada aims to carve out a region-specific standalone deal with Chiefs of Ontario (COO) and Nishnawbe Aski Nation (NAN), which helped negotiate the agreement and were the only groups to fully endorse it.

Now it feels like chiefs elsewhere are "being punished," for their decision, said Terry Teegee, Assembly of First Nations (AFN) regional chief for British Columbia.

"It's like we're being punished for not toeing the line, and then that's a real issue. That's not good faith negotiations," Teegee told CBC Indigenous.

Similarly David Pratt, first vice-chief of the Federation of Sovereign Indigenous Nations, said the federal Liberals need to "quit playing games" and "come back to the table" nationally. 

And if they don't, "we'll continue the fight," that forced Ottawa to negotiate in the first place, said Pratt, whose group represents 74 First Nations in Saskatchewan.

"It's just unfortunate that Canada chooses to take this route where they're dealing honourably with Ontario, and rightly so, but it excludes the rest of the country," he said.

That fight occurred mainly in the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal, which ruled in 2016 that the government racially discriminated against First Nations kids by underfunding the child welfare system in their communities and refusing to respect Jordan's Principle.

Jordan's Principle ensures First Nations youth in need can access health care and social services without delays tied to jurisdictional squabbling over which government should pay.

Canada put the potentially historic settlement offer on the table to fulfil a binding order from the tribunal. But after chiefs rejected it, Ottawa's legal counsel wrote in a Jan. 6 letter to the AFN that Canada's mandate does not permit further negotiations on a national basis, nor negotiations with anyone other than COO and NAN, "at this time."

COO is a provincewide umbrella group and NAN represents 49 First Nations in northern Ontario. 

Last Tuesday, Jennifer Kozelj, spokesperson for Indigenous Services Minister Patty Hajdu, said Canada is not cutting out the AFN nor is it refusing to engage with the chiefs' directions. COO and NAN wanted to work with Canada within the terms of the original proposal, so Canada did, Kozelj wrote by text.

AFN, which represents chiefs across the country, said in a bulletin Friday that without Canada's willingness to negotiate nationally, the next option "may be litigation." Teegee agreed.

"I suppose it would be the last resort. I mean, it'd be disappointing that we have to go to court again on something that Canada has to do," he said.

"We wouldn't be here if Canada didn't discriminate against our children for many, many years. And it's not like they're doing us a favour; it's their obligation to do it."

'The children are paying the price'

COO and NAN are long-standing parties to the complaint, filed in 2007 by the AFN and the First Nations Child and Family Caring Society. 

Cindy Blackstock, executive director of the Caring Society, a co-complainant at the tribunal which did not participate in the settlement negotiations, reiterated the reasons why she opposed the offer on social media last week.

"The agreement announced a lot of money and sounded good until you read the fine print," she wrote on X.

But it also had "secret governance without regional representation" and time-limited money with lots of strings attached, she added.

"No surprise it was not approved by First Nations nationally who set out a plan to negotiate a more effective, fair and inclusive agreement," Blackstock wrote.

NDP Indigenous Services critic and Nunavut MP Lori Idlout said the Liberals, by negotiating exclusively with Ontario, are breaking promises and pitting First Nations against each other, which Teegee called a fair criticism.

In response to that, Pratt credited and uplifted Ontario leaders for negotiating a deal that works for them. But the proposal was rejected nationally precisely because it favoured Ontario, leaving others out, he added. 

It remains unclear how much movement there can be on the file after Prime Minister Justin Trudeau shut down Parliament until March and announced his plan to resign once the Liberals choose a successor. Opposition parties could trigger an election as early as March.

"It's frustrating, I guess. We're caught in the middle of all this political turmoil that was created by [Trudeau's] own administration," said Teegee. 

"And then ultimately, perhaps, the children are paying the price here, and that's not good."

Pratt said if the government's goal is to frighten First Nations into flip flopping and accepting an agreement they already deemed inadequate, it won't happen.

"I can't see the chiefs falling for a scare tactic, because we've been through this for so long with Canada. It's nothing new," he said. 

"I think there's a lot of work that needs to be done and I'm hopeful. We're always hopeful and we're always optimistic."