A spokesman for Amnesty International says a human rights complaint against the federal government could have major implications down the road.
Last week, a federal court ruled that a complaint against Ottawa over its funding of child protection services on reserve can go ahead.
The court has instructed the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal to begin hearing the case as soon as possible.
The group launching the complaint feels First Nations children are being discriminated against because of alleged funding shortfalls within the funding formula.
Ottawa has been fighting the attempt to have the case heard by the tribunal.
Amnesty International’s Craig Benjamin says a lot is at stake:
“That responsibility is the same responsibility that comes forward in education, health, clean drinking water — and the same situation of underfunding exists. So if it’s possible to move forward and to get a positive result from this human rights complaint — it certainly would not only open the door, but indicate the likely success of complaints on all those other grounds.”
Benjamin says the case is significant for a couple of reasons:
“This is the first complaint to move forward since the Canadian Human Rights Act was amended to remove that historic exclusion about the application of the Indian Act. And secondly, this is the first case of its kind of the adoption of the U.N. Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.”
He adds the decision also confirms that Canadian laws need to be interpreted in light of the U.N. declaration.