Tansi Nîtôtemtik,
Image retrieved from <www.cbc.ca/radio/thecurrent/a-special-edition-of-the-current-for-january-25-2018-1.4503172>.
In January 2018, CBC Radio’s The Current released a special edition entitled “In Care and In Crisis: Canada’s Indigenous Child Welfare Emergency.”[1] This episode sought to focus on the emergency that is Canada’s child welfare and foster care system. The episode was broken down into four segments, each focusing on interviews with individuals who had experienced, or who had worked within, the system.
In the first part of the episode, host Anna Maria Tremonti spoke with an anonymous Indigenous mother from Manitoba whose first child was taken into Child and Family Services (CFS) care when she was 16. Now 20 and pregnant again, the mother related how she is on a “birth alert list”, meaning her second, unborn child could be seized by CFS after she gives birth. The mother spoke emotionally about having her son taken away from her when he was just months old and how now, weeks away from giving birth to her daughter, she is under a birth order and fears CFS will take her daughter away as well. Anna Maria Tremonti also spoke with Sandie Stoker, the executive director of the Child and Family All Nations Coordinated Response Network, which responds to birth alerts in Winnipeg. Ms. Stoker explained what a birth alert is and the safety assessment process it triggers.
In the second part of the episode, Anna Maria Tremonti interviewed three young Indigenous adults, each of whom each shared their experiences growing up within the foster care system.[2] One of the interviewees, Jaye Simpson (aged 23), shared her firm belief that the foster care system is working the way it is designed – that is, “as a machine to destroy Indigeneity.”[3] Another interviewee, Reina Foster (aged 19) described the child welfare system as “a form of cultural genocide for Indigenous children,” just like the residential school system and the Sixties Scoop.[4] She stated that today’s welfare system, referred to as the “Millennials scoop”, is the legacy of these institutions.[5] The third interviewee, Dylan Cohen (aged 22), further stated that the system is creating a “legacy of inter-generational trauma” for the children in its care.[6]
The third segment of the episode featured an interview with then Minister of Indigenous Services, Jane Philpott, who discussed action taken by the federal government to alleviate the crisis. Ms. Philpott noted there are “perverse incentives” within the system to apprehend Indigenous children. Specifically, she noted the system is paid according to the number of kids apprehended. In response to Jaye’s comment about how the system is a machine built to destroy Indigeneity, Ms. Philpott acknowledged that she was “speaking the harsh truth.”[7] Building on that truth, Ms. Philpott stated that the system is not broken, but “is doing what it has been designed to do.” She concluded that, ultimately, “we have to disrupt that system” and change its incentives.[8]
The final segment highlighted two community initiatives that offer creative solutions to the issues inherent in the child welfare system. First was a profile on Felix Walker, CEO of the Family and Community Wellness Centre on the Nisichawaysihk First Nation, who instituted an innovative approach to child welfare which involves removing parents, not children, from homes where children are at risk, and placing them with extended family in the community. Second was a profile on Winnipeg’s Metis Child and Family Services Authority’s LIFE Program, which places children and their parents in a foster home, where they learn about parenting and themselves from a so-called “LIFE-Mom”.
The full episode is available here.[9]
Until next time,
Team ReconciliAction YEG
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[1] CBC Radio, “The Current: In Care and In Crisis: Canada’s Indigenous Child Welfare Emergency” (25 January 2018), online: The Current <www.cbc.ca/radio/thecurrent/a-special-edition-of-the-current-for-january-25-2018-1.4503172 > [perma.cc/CG9W-98XQ].
[2] A more thorough overview of this interview was featured on the blog last week. See our November 22nd post.
[3] Ibid.
[4] Ibid.
[5] Ibid.
[6] Ibid.
[7] Ibid.
[8] Ibid.
[9] CBC Radio, “The Current: In Care and In Crisis: Canada’s Indigenous Child Welfare Emergency” (25 January 2018), online: The Current <www.cbc.ca/radio/thecurrent/a-special-edition-of-the-current-for-january-25-2018-1.4503172 > [perma.cc/CG9W-98XQ]. A transcript is also available: see <www.cbc.ca/radio/thecurrent/a-special-edition-of-the-current-for-january-25-2018-1.4503172/thursday-january-25-2018-full-text-transcript-1.4504311> [perma.cc/G8ZE-FFE9].
