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The Canadian Human Rights Tribunal in 2016 ruled the federal government discriminated against First Nations children on reserves because the only way they got the same child-welfare funding and programming as other kids in Canada was if they were taken into care, often in non-Indigenous households far from their home communities. And those arrangements have their own problems.

The tribunal ruling came almost a decade after the Assembly of First Nations and the First Nations Child and Family Caring Society made a human-rights complaint about the issue. Every year that passed, more and more children were taken into care.

“This is our modern-day variation on the legacy of residential schools,” said Philpott.

She said children placed in foster care are at great risk for homelessness, incarceration, human trafficking, suicide and homicide.

Nationally, more than half the kids in foster care are Indigenous. In some provinces, such as Manitoba, that number is close to 90 per cent. Philpott said about 80 per cent of the time the reason kids are apprehended is on allegations of “neglect” — but really that just means their families are poor.

“I reject the term ‘neglect’ as a satisfactory explanation for why a child should be apprehended,” she said. “If there is neglect it’s not necessarily neglect on the part of parents, it’s neglect on the part of the government and the system that leaves people in poverty.”

Assembly of First Nations National Chief Perry Bellegarde said he hopes this legislation will mean the number of Indigenous kids in care will finally start to decrease.