RETURNED TO COWESSESS FIRST NATION

CASE STUDY: CHILD WELFARE RESPONSIBILITIES RETURNED TO COWESSESS FIRST NATION

Since time immemorial, Indigenous peoples in the lands now called Canada have had “traditional systems of culture, law and knowledge” (National Collaborating Centre for Aboriginal Health, 2017, p. 2) that ensured the protection of their children. However, during the 19th and 20th centuries, colonizers’ attempts to assimilate Indigenous Peoples aimed specific attention at this population’s children. The 1870s to the 1990s saw the planned systematic removal of Indigenous children, a practice involving government, church personnel, and the RCMP. These children were taken from their homes and placed in Indian Residential Schools, where they were subject to physical, sexual, psychological, emotional, and spiritual violence.

Well before the closure of the last school, social services, supported by provincial ministries, were apprehending significant numbers of Indigenous children, removing them from their families and cultures through the child welfare system in a process now known as the Sixties Scoop. This apprehension of children has continued into the 21st century (the Millennium Scoop). Today, over half (52.2%) of the children in foster care in Canada who are 0–14 years old are Indigenous, despite Indigenous children comprising only 7.7% of children 0–14 in Canada (Indigenous Services Canada, 2021b). Recently, Nunavut Member of Parliament, Mumilaaq Qaqqaq said that “foster care is the new residential school system” (as cited in Wright, 2021, para. 4).

First Nations, Inuit, and Métis communities and families from coast to coast to coast have long sought to regain control of child welfare. In 2020, the Act respecting First Nations, Inuit and Métis children, youth and families (Ministry of Justice, 2020), developed in cooperation with Indigenous peoples, came into effect. The legislation aimed to decrease the number of First Nations, Inuit, and Métis children and youth in care—but full responsibility of child welfare is not yet in the hands of Indigenous communities.

In the wake of the tragic discovery in June 2021 of 751 unmarked graves near the former Marieval Indian Residential School in Southern Saskatchewan, which operated in the area where Cowessess is now located, the federal government has signed “the first Coordination Agreement under the Act respecting First Nations, Inuit and Métis children, youth and families” (Canada, 2021b). This landmark agreement returns child welfare responsibilities to Cowessess First Nation. It also confirms the Cowessess Nation’s inherent right to care for their own children and begins the process of redressing the wrongs done to Indigenous children and families for over two centuries across Canada.