Dene National Chief George Mackenzie says “the real work” begins now that First Nations chiefs have agreed to include the NWT in a child welfare settlement.
At a Special Chiefs Assembly in Ottawa last week, Indigenous leaders from across Canada overwhelmingly backed a Dene Nation resolution to include the territory in negotiations regarding long-term reform of First Nations child and family services.
“We are very grateful for the support we got for the NWT children and families,” Mackenzie told Cabin Radio on Monday. “Now the real work, it’s going to start, which we’re anxious to get going.”
Mackenzie said 18 Dene chiefs and 10 staff travelled to the assembly in unanimous support of the resolution.
At a previous special assembly in October, Indigenous leaders voted against a draft $47.8-billion agreement with the federal government. They called for the Assembly of First Nations to renegotiate.
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Those new negotiations, which are set to begin early next year, will now include NWT First Nations.
“It is exciting because [this is the] first time the First Nations of the NWT are going to be included in everything, in the package, in the reform compensation and the negotiation team. That never took place before,” Mackenzie said.
The draft agreement stemmed from a 2016 ruling by the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal that 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.
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Mackenzie said there is much to discuss when it comes to reform of child and family services and he wants to see NWT First Nations have greater control over those programs.
He pointed to two damning auditor general’s reports that found “serious, long-standing deficiencies” in services the territorial government provided to children and families got worse between 2014 and 2018.
“That means the First Nation has to plan it, run it for ourselves, away from the GNWT,” Mackenzie said, adding that will mean cultural programming, on-the-land healing, and keeping children within communities and families.
Currently, federal funding for child and family services in the NWT is provided through transfer payment agreements with the territorial government, which then decides how to use those funds.
Mackenzie said the resolution passed last week will ensure money from any agreement on long-term reform of child and family services will go to First Nations rather than the NWT government.
“It’s a huge, huge accomplishment,” Mackenzie said.
“We’ve got to do it for ourselves to make it better for ourselves. An Elder once said, ‘We make mistakes. It is our mistake, we correct our mistake. Nobody should make a mistake for us.'”
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 after the passing of the landmark federal Act Respecting First nations, Inuit and Métis Children, Youth and Families.
The corporation signed a $533.5-million agreement with the Canadian and NWT governments in September toward advancing its plan to take control of child and family services for Inuvialuit.
