Lawyers for the federal are in court today to appeal a ruling by the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal that found that Ottawa “wilfully and recklessly” discriminated against Indigenous children and their families and ordered the government to pay billions of dollars in compensation.
In September, the tribunal ordered the federal government to pay $40,000 for every First Nations child who was inappropriately taken away from their parents after 2006.
The Assembly of First Nations, which represents 900,000 people living in 634 First Nation communities, across the country, estimated that 54,000 children and their parents could be eligible for total compensation that could exceed $2 billion.
The ruling said the government discriminated against Indigenous children living on reserves by failing to properly fund child and family services in these First Nations communities.
Lawyers for the Justice Department are expected to ask the Federal Court for a stay of execution of the tribunal’s order until its judicial review application gets decided.
The federal government argues in court filings that the tribunal order was an overreach and that the original case was about systemic discrimination — which required a systemic fix — not individual compensation, which is the purview of class action law.
‘Legal issues’
Justice Minister David Lametti said the government feels there are legal issues with the tribunal ruling.
“That’s going to be the basis for seeking judicial review,” Lametti said. “But that is not inconsistent with our deeply held desire to have a negotiated fair and full settlement in this case.”
The government is also concerned about the limited scope of the tribunal’s decision, which only covers cases since 2006, leaving out thousands of Indigenous people who were affected by discriminatory government policies since 1991.
The federal government would prefer to settle all those cases in one shot outside of the tribunal, possibly though a proposed class action lawsuit that’s already underway.
“We have accepted the fact that we have to compensate,” Lametti told CBC News.
“We have accepted the fact that we have done wrong, but we have to do it in a way that respects everybody who was wronged whether they be children or whether they be families across a wider swath of time.”
Critics accuse the government of dragging its foot again and reneging on its promise of reconciliation with Canada’s First Nations.
‘They need to compensate’
Dawn Johnson, who spent her childhood in care, told The Canadian Press Ottawa doesn’t need to do any more consultations before ending discriminatory policies.
“They’ve been fighting this since 2006, so we’re going on 14 years that the government is wilfully and recklessly choosing economics and finances over the lives of children and families,” Johnson told The Canadian Press.
“They’ve had plenty of time to cease the discrimination and have funnelled billions of dollars into taking Indigenous children to court and righting this. They need to cease the discrimination now. They need to compensate.”
With files from Olivia Stefanovich of CBC News and The Canadian Press
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