Federal Court clears class action against Ottawa on behalf of off-reserve Indigenous children who had been removed from their families and “placed” in non-Indigenous foster care.
In a decision posted online Monday, Federal Court Judge Michael Phelan ruled that the class action would cover the period from January 1, 1992 to December 31, 2019.
The Vancouver law firm representing the plaintiffs calls this period the new millennium roundup while there had been another in Canada in the 1960s.
The judge also defined the class of this class action, which will include status and non-status Indians, young Inuit and Métis and their families who did not live on reserves.
The group is seeking various damages, as well as restitution or recovery of specific costs on behalf of the affected children and families. The group alleges that the federal government’s actions violated the Charter of Rights and Freedoms and demonstrated systemic negligence, although the allegations have not been proven in court.
Vancouver attorney Angela Bespflug, speaking on behalf of the plaintiffs, said the Federal Court’s leave signals a significant change in the lawbecause the federal government must now explain why it has treated off-reserve children differently than those living on reserves.
It is fundamentally unfair that Canada agreed to compensate children on reserves while leaving children off reserve on the sidelinessaid Me Bespflug in a press release published by the law firm Murphy Battista.
The federal government last year reached an agreement in principle to provide $40 billion to on-reserve children and their families affected by discriminatory funding practices related to the child welfare system.
However, the firm Murphy Battista argues that according to current data, the vast majority of Aboriginal children taken from their families and placed in government custody are Aboriginal children outside the communities and not from the communities.
Dr. Cindy Blackstock, director of the First Nations Child and Family Caring Society, says that compared to the heyday of federal residential schools, three times as many children are now in the care of the state.
Canada apologized for residential schools, but continued same policies under different nameargues Ms. Blackstock in the same press release.
We call on Canada to stop opposing off-reserve Indigenous children in court, to take the lead and lead by example, and finally make the changes needed to fix this deeply flawed system.she says.
The Canadian Press
Source: Radio-Canada
