The Dene Nation says it is advocating for “fair and equitable inclusion” in a historic child welfare settlement with the Canadian government.
According to a Thursday press release, a large delegation of Dene leaders attended a three-day special meeting hosted by the Assembly of First Nations in Calgary last month with that goal in mind.
“We will not accept anything less. Every child matters,” Dene National Chief George Mackenzie said in a statement.
The meeting focused on long-term reform of the federal First Nations Child and Family Services Program to ensure decades of discrimination does not continue.
First Nations leaders from across Canada voted against a draft agreement that would have seen the Canadian government provide $47.8 billion over 10 years to reform the program.
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That agreement had been negotiated between the federal government, Assembly of First Nations, Chiefs of Ontario and Nishnawbe Aski First Nation.
Delegates at last month’s meeting called on the assembly to take a new approach to negotiate a different final agreement.
The Dene Nation, which supported those resolutions, said that would give it more time and opportunity to engage in negotiations and lobbying to “achieve full, fair and equitable inclusion in this historic deal.”
While Indigenous Services Canada advised it would provide funding for “an exploratory process” to help Dene governments take over child and family services for their members, the Dene Nation said, it would not commit to fully including Dene children from the NWT in the final settlement agreement.
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The Dene Nation said securing inclusion in that agreement would “be a significant step towards providing compensation for past harms, reforming Canada’s child welfare system, and addressing the injustices caused by past discriminatory policies.”
The draft agreement stems from a class-action lawsuit and 2016 ruling from the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal, which found Canada had discriminated against First Nations children and their families by improperly funding child and family services on reserves and in the Yukon.
A related final settlement agreement providing $23.3 billion in compensation, which was approved in 2023, did not include NWT children and families.
While issues with the NWT’s child welfare system have been well documented, federal funding for those services in the NWT and Nunavut is provided through transfer payment agreements with the territorial governments rather than through the First Nations Child and Family Services Program, which is funded by Indigenous Services Canada. The territorial governments then decide how to use those funds.
“As Dene leaders, we stand united in our beliefs that it is our inherent and treaty right to ensure our children and families are respected and supported, and we are committed to working toward a Dene-led solution,” Chief Mackenzie said in a statement on Thursday.
“The funding and resources we are advocating for, related to compensation and long-term reform, must be provided directly to our people and their First Nations, and not to the Government of the Northwest Territories.”
The Inuvialuit Regional Corporation was the first Indigenous organization in the NWT, and the first Inuit group in Canada, to pass its own child and family services law.
The IRC signed a $533.5-million agreement with the federal and NWT governments in September toward advancing its plan to take control of child and family services for Inuvialuit.
