When she was in her early 20s, Cindy Blackstock worked in B.C. group homes to earn her university tuition. She realized then,she said, that the teens she was caring for –most of them aboriginal -- had been taken from their families into a system that was often worse than the homes they’d left. That’s when she got angry. And when she started fighting, with her gentle, sharp style.
In the 30 years since then Blackstock, a member of the northern BC Gitksan Nation, has worked to end Canada’s 160-year legacy of removing aboriginal children from their homes. First as a social worker, with Squamish First Nation and on the North Shore, later in Vancouver’s Downtown East Side.
Now, she’s the Executive Director of the First Nations Family and Child Caring Society in Ottawa. This summer, her organization held the federal government’s feet to the fire before a human rights tribunal.
The last of Canada’s infamous residential schools—scenes of frequent abuse where kids were beaten simply for speaking their native language—closed in 1996. But chronic underfunding of family services, child protection and education on reserves, she argues, has led to yet another generation of aboriginal kids being ripped from their families—this time, into foster care.
In B.C., more than half (53 percent) of children in foster care are aboriginal – ten times their presence in the population as a whole. In 2008, the Auditor General of Canada noted that aboriginal children are six to eight times more likely to be placed in care than non-aboriginal children.
And once there, few fare well. Half the kids on Vancouver streets are aboriginal; and four in 10 of those have been in foster care. Among aboriginal boys who are permanent wards of the Crown B.C., fewer than one in four graduate from high school on time.
Just like residential school, Blackstock said, foster care brings with it the trauma of losing your family and community. And she blames the same root cause: racial discrimination. It has to end, Blackstock says. She believes Canada knows better, and can do better. Here is more of what she has to say:
Q:Why do you say that today’s foster care is a legacy of Canada’s residential schools?
Blackstock:There are two major themes and connections. First, there’s the multigenerational effects of residential schools that have created hardships for families today. The children who attended them are now parents. They’re lacking parental role models, and there’s neglect and abuse and substance abuse. Their kids are apprehended by the state, just as they were. Second, there’s the same case of dramatic underfunding [of education and other services] of First Nations children by the government today, as there was during the residential school era. That underfunding has links to First Nations children being removed from their families in numbers greater than during residential school period. The same pattern is there, resulting in the same thing.
Q:So, should B.C. just stop apprehending aboriginal kids?
Blackstock:I’m not an idealist. I think some kids need to be in care. But we have got to make sure that when we remove a child, we offer them a better life.
Q:What’s a better vision?
Blackstock:Ninety percent of kids aging out of care (when the government stops funding their foster parents or group homes, at age 19) go back to their families. We need to support them in having good relations with their families. We shouldn’t be divorcing them from their family. They’re worthy of building positive relationships in their life. So that when they go back home, they can say, ‘You know mom, I don’t want to be around you when you’re using crack. But I still love you.’ People are too quick to judge these families. Every family has a crazy relative in it. Even the best parent will get frustrated and struggle. The difference is, most of us are people who have their basic needs met: clean water, nutritious food in the fridge, warm house. In a community where there’s no water or sewer, where education is underfunded – it makes parenting that much harder.
Q:In B.C., 53 percent of kids in care are aboriginal. That’s a really appalling statistic.
What would you say to those who think First Nations just need to get it together,
and fix their own families and communities – without relying on government?
Blackstock:Too often we hear, “Just pull [your]selves up from bootstraps.” That assumes that aboriginal people have the same opportunities to succeed as other Canadians. I worked for the Squamish Nation [as a social worker] and I worked for the province just across the street. I was flabbergasted by the change, just by walking across the street. At Squamish, there were high voltage lines over the child protection office that sparked when it rained. People were expected to go in. There was nothing for family support. This was a nation that invested its own revenues to top up the federal funds. I did child protection in West Vancouver, too, and I never had to go knocking on doors and ask people to top up the budget. Some people say remoteness contributes to the problems. That’s a bogus argument. You’re only remote until they find diamonds under you, then you’ll have politicians eating seal meat up where you are. I say, your best natural resource is kids. That’s what you should be investing in. For conservatives who say ‘You need to pull yourselves up by the bootstraps,’ I say, ‘It’s in your interest to fix this. You’re setting yourselves up for increased crime, increased mental health [illness] rates, when you’re not paying attention to these social gaps.’
Q:What should policy makers have learned from the residential school experience?
Blackstock:One of my great heroes is Peter Henderson Bryce. He was a physician recruited by the Department of Indian Affairs to conduct a study in 1904, about what was happening in residential schools. At one school, he found a death rate [of] 24 percent in the first year. Over three years, it was 40 percent. He came back and said, the horrible news is the death rates. But the good news is, the vast majority are tuberculosis deaths. And we know how to fix that. Provide better nutrition, improve ventilation; don’t exhaust them through servitude; don’t put sick kids in with healthy kids. The government never implemented his reforms. He left his post in 1922, after writing letters and letters calling for improvements in residential schools. When he retired, he wrote a book called The Story of a National Crime: Being a Record of the Health Conditions of the Indians of Canada from 1904 to 1921 – that’s where he does his public rant about ‘My god, what are they doing?’ So it is really clear that people of the time thought this [residential schools] was really wrong. Still, government dismissed people bringing things forward. Now it’s the same case: dramatic underfunding by the government, which has links to First Nations children being removed from their families. Canada has tried to derail [the Human Rights tribunal] through legal loopholes. It’s the same pattern resulting in the same thing. We knew better then, and we know better now.
Q:What would you say to aboriginal teens who are currently in foster care and on the streets?
Blackstock:I would say, number one, there are things that you can take responsibility for in your own life.[But] you can get involved in change. To the kids in care and their families, I’d say, they are the very reason why I fight so hard. The stories I heard when I was on the front lines. When I get tired or frustrated, I think of them.
Q:What needs to change, so that the mass apprehension of aboriginal children becomes history?
Blackstock:Provide a wider array of supports so families can stay together. End poverty, improve housing, fund education equitably.
In the U.S., the National Centre for Housing and Child Welfare
(NCHCW) did a pilot [project] where they reallocated child protection funds towards housing. What they found was, they’re saving taxpayers about 80 percent of expenditures on social services, just by stabilizing housing. It’s proof that most families can stay together. Allocate dollars to housing. Although it will not happen overnight, we should see the numbers of kids in care and the prison system decrease substantially.