Today in the BC Legislature, Doug Donaldson, MLA for Stikine, pushed the BC Liberals to do more to help protect aboriginal children from being removed from their families into care.
A federal fund for prevention services that has been available since 2007 has yet to be rolled out in British Columbia.
“Why are you leaving tens of millions of dollars on the table that could make a life-and-death difference for aboriginal children,” Donaldson asked Stephanie Cadieux, minister of Children and Social Development.
Fifty-three per cent of children in care are aboriginal, yet aboriginal people make up only about five per cent of the BC population. There is a huge over-representation of aboriginal children in the child welfare system, he said.
“Federal enhanced prevention dollars have been provided to provinces and agencies since 2007. Alberta has received about $140 million; Saskatchewan, $127 million; Manitoba, $115 million. B.C. has received zero — nothing…
“B.C. is not there yet,” said federal Aboriginal Affairs Minister Bernard Valcourt when he spoke to Ha-Shilth-Sa about this issue last year.
See story here: http://www.hashilthsa.com/news/2014-04-03/minister-says-bc-must-wait-child-welfare-prevention-dollars
Taxpayers’ capacity to pay has to be respected, he said on March 19, 2014.
“I am committed, our government is committed to continuing implementing this enhanced prevention approach, but it’s a question of time, I guess, before we can identify the resources.”
Valcourt told Ha-Shilth-Sa that prevention can be achieved within the current protection fiscal relationship. It’s not always a question of resources, he said, “but a way of doing things more efficiently, more effectively.”
Nuu-chah-nulth Tribal Council President Debra Foxcroft balked at that statement. Most First Nations in BC receive services through delegated agencies, and many of them are struggling with current funding levels. The Nuu-chah-nulth Tribal Council was the first to become a delegated agency in the province.
“We know that intervention and prevention is key to keeping children out of care,” Foxcroft said.
It costs government more to take children into care and keep them there, said Foxcroft, than it would to support the child in their own home or have them with a relative or a placement that doesn’t have to go through the court system.
BC is ready and has been for a long time, she told Ha-Shilth-Sa. Why is B.C. being rejected, she asked.
“Why do our children and families and youth have to wait?"
