Why some First Nations were hesitant to accept a $47.8 billion child welfare agreement

After two days of lengthy and contentious discussions in Toronto, Ontario’s First Nations have ratified a $47.8 billion agreement with Ottawa on child welfare reform that has been in the works since 2016.

Ontario’s largest confederation of First Nations, the Nishnawbe Aski Nation (NAN), voted to ratify the agreement, followed by the Chiefs of Ontario (COO) on Thursday afternoon. A third and final vote will take place next week at the Assembly of First Nations in Calgary.

Although the agreement promises nearly $48 billion over 10 years for First Nation children’s charities run by their local communities and suffering from chronic underfunding, over the past two days many chiefs expressed dissatisfaction with the terms of the agreement . For example, this does not apply to children or agencies outside the reservation.

That criticism didn’t stop Ontario First Nations leaders from voting overwhelmingly to approve the agreement on Thursday. 62 chiefs voted in favor, three against and one abstained.

“We recognize and acknowledge the shortcomings of this agreement. As we have always said, it is not a perfect agreement,” NAN Grand Chief Alvin Fiddler said during a press conference after the vote, adding that all chiefs “recognize that the status quo continues to harm our children.

“They made this decision because if they say no to this agreement, they are saying yes to the status quo.”

Abram Benedict, Ontario regional chief, also noted that the scope of the agreement was limited to issues considered by the court, as the agreement was based on a 2016 substantive decision by the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal, in which NAN and COO acted as interveners.

“There are many other areas that impact our children’s families: drinking water, housing and economic development,” Benedict said.

“We have built some recognition and additional resources into this development for housing, but there are other areas that need to be addressed.”

What happens next with child welfare?

Despite acknowledged problems with child welfare on reserves stemming from underfunding, the province does not include Ontario’s 13 Indigenous agencies in its audit of child welfare agencies.

During a technical briefing this week, government officials said that’s because the province has “taken a different path when it comes to Indigenous people.” [communities] around self-determination and jurisdiction.”

Benedict had little sympathy for the scrutiny of non-Indigenous authorities, noting that many of them had “done our communities a disservice” over the decades.

“They have not supported our communities one bit and the move by the Ontario government to audit some of these institutions is unfortunately not surprising,” Benedict said.

One of the next steps to fix First Nation-run agencies will be to push the Ontario and federal governments for a complete overhaul of the Indian Welfare Agreement signed in 1965, which will likely increase the province’s responsibility for funding Indigenous peoples would increase child welfare services.

But first the current agreement must receive final approval from the Assembly of First Nations (AFN), which is shaping up to be an even more contentious discussion.

The agreement between Ottawa and Ontario First Nations caused great consternation among Indigenous organizations and communities in the rest of Canada, who complained that they were left out of the agreement and accused NAN and COO of negotiating it in secret.

Fiddler strongly rejected the last point, calling it “absolutely false.”

Benedict added that AFN will be kept informed and will be responsible for disseminating this information to other regions. He also pointed out that NAN and COO were involved in the negotiations as they were the interveners in the Human Rights Court case.

“I cannot explain why other regions have not intervened,” Benedict said.

“If, for whatever reason, the (AFN) vote is not positive, then we still have a mandate to (adopt) the proposal and we have to consider what our next steps are.”

This article originally appeared on The Trillium, a Village Media website dedicated solely to covering provincial politics in Queen’s Park.