Largest First Nation in B.C. votes to take authority over child and family services for its members

The largest First Nation in British Columbia by population has voted to take over authority of child and family services for its residents.

Results released Friday of a vote held by the Cowichan Tribes show 83 per cent of the 416 citizens who cast ballots were in favour of the new law that would prioritize supports to keep children with their families or place them with relatives or in other Indigenous homes.

Negotiator Robert Morales, who helped develop the new law, said the Government of Canada decided what was best for Indigenous children for more than 150 years and chose to remove them from their families and culture when placing them in the child welfare system.

"[The new law] represents a significant step in the self-determination of the Cowichan people,'' he said in an interview.

"The ability to make determinations as to what's in the best interests of your children is a very fundamental right, and one that the community should have a significant say in and not have outside governments making those determinations."

Details to come

Federal legislation that took effect in 2020 allows Indigenous communities to create and manage their own child welfare systems.

The Cowichan Tribes — which has about 5,300 members and is based on Vancouver Island — have been negotiating for years with the federal and provincial governments on what the transition will look like.

Morales says those negotiations are expected to wrap up by January and the Cowichan Tribes are hoping to take over by April 2024.

For now, he said the new law will apply to members living anywhere on Vancouver Island and on the Gulf Islands but could eventually be applied to all members of the First Nation in the child welfare system anywhere in Canada.

"Under the federal legislation, they have not set any geographic boundaries. So Indigenous laws apply as far as the Indigenous nations says they want their laws to apply," Morales said.

"But the federal government has also said that their position is that each nation would need to negotiate a co-ordination agreement with the province.''

He says there are about 100 children who are members of Cowichan Tribes currently covered under provincial child services laws.

Cowichan Tribes Chief Lydia Hwitsum said in a statement ahead of the vote that ratifying the law means keeping families together in a way that reflects the community's teachings and ways of being.

"We are at a defining moment in our history, with the opportunity at our fingertips to chart a happy, healthy, and culturally-rich future for our smun'eem, our children," she said.

Indigenous children more likely to be apprehended

In November 2022, B.C. became the first jurisdiction in Canada to recognize the inherent right of Indigenous communities to legally create and control their own child and family services, following the passing the Indigenous Self-Government in Child and Family Services Amendment Act.

The province says the act will enable the province and Indigenous Peoples to "collaborate and ensure Indigenous Peoples can govern and provide services based on their own child and family laws," according to a statement from the government at the time.

The move was made with an eye to ending the overrepresentation of Indigenous children and youth in care in B.C., who are nearly seven times more likely to be apprehended than non-Indigenous children, according to data from the Ministry of Child and Family Development.

There were 5,037 children and youth in care in B.C. between April 2021 and March 2022, according to the ministry, and approximately 3,425 were Indigenous. 

Indigenous children and youth make up 67.9 per cent of children and youth in care in B.C. despite accounting for 12.6 per cent of people under 19 in the province, according to ministry data.

For a long time, First Nations have compared the over-representation of Indigenous children in the child welfare system to the residential school system and the Sixties Scoop, which removed Indigenous children from their families, communities and cultures.

The Cowichan Tribes is one of at least four Indigenous governing bodies that have already begun exercising their jurisdiction over child and welfare services, according to the province.