ICFS Director Applauds AFN Human Rights Complaint
Wednesday, February 07, 2007 at 13:40
The child welfare director for Saskatchewan’s second-largest First Nation is welcoming a human rights complaint launched against the federal government by the Assembly of First Nations.
Dexter Kinequon of the Lac La Ronge Indian Band says AFN National Chief Phil Fontaine is right when he says Native communities receive less funding than non-Native communities to fund child social services where they live.
Fontaine says the result is Aboriginal kids are three times more likely to be in foster care than children from non-Aboriginal families.
Kinequon says the problem is federal legislation only allows groups like his to focus on protective services (working with families with children in care), but not on preventative services (working with families with children still in the home).
Kinequon also wonders if the AFN’s complaint can be heard under the Canadian Human Rights Act. He says even if it can’t, at least the issue is getting national attention.
Meantime, Desnethe-Missinipi-Churchill River MP Gary Merasty questioned Indian Affairs Minister Jim Prentice’s seriousness about the matter in the House of Commons yesterday.
Merasty openly wondered how Prentice could recently refuse to spend any new money on First Nations child welfare services, yet spend $2,000 of taxpayers’ money at a ritzy hotel in Washington, DC — a hotel Merasty says claims to have redefined what luxurious means.
Prentice responded by stating he was in Washington to attend meetings with US Vice-President Dick Cheney regarding the MacKenzie Valley and Alaskan pipeline projects — another file he says he’s responsible for.
(with files from Broadcast News)