Canada's Minister of Crown-Indigenous Relations Marc Miller speaks at a news conference to provide an update on the negotiations related to compensation and long-term reform of First Nations Child and Family Services in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada January 4, 2022.
Canada's Minister of Crown-Indigenous Relations Marc Miller speaks at a news conference to provide an update on the negotiations related to compensation and long-term reform of First Nations Child and Family Services in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada January 4, 2022.REUTERS/Patrick Doyle
  • The Canadian government will compensate First Nations children who were removed from their families.
  • The placement of these children into the child welfare system has been called "discriminatory."
  • The government will also use half of the $40 billion to reform the child welfare system. 

Canadian officials announced they will compensate Indigenous children placed into foster care against their will and reform the child welfare system with an approximately $31 billion USD "milestone" agreement, according to a press release by the Government of Canada. 

The announcement comes 15 years after the First Nations Child and Family Caring Society and the Assembly of First Nations filed a human rights complaint against the federal government of Canada in 2007. 

Approximately 200,000 First Nations children may be eligible for compensation, according to the Assembly of First Nations, an advocacy organization for Indigenous people in Canada.

"Every day for decades, First Nations children, some even newborns, have been ripped from their families and communities, and many denied medical services and other supports when they've needed them, all at the hands of a federal child welfare program that should have protected them," said Regional Chief Cindy Woodhouse of Assembly of First Nations in a statement Tuesday.

While $20 billion will be allocated towards First Nations children who were removed from their families between April 1, 1991, and March 31, 2022, the remaining half will go towards reforming the First Nations Child and Family Services program to prevent future "discrimination," Canadian government officials said in a press statement. 

The final settlement agreement has not yet been reached, but more details will unfurl "as soon as possible," said Minister of Indigenous Services Patty Hajdu, a member of Parliament, at a Tuesday press conference.

"We have a long way to go to address the poverty in our nations and no amount of money will ever be the 'right amount', nor will it bring back a childhood lost, but today is about acknowledgment, about being seen and heard," Woodhouse added. 

Have a news tip? Email this reporter at [email protected]. 

Read the original article on Insider