Indigenous Children in the Foster Care System and why it is a Vicious Circle

Maxim Luca Bortnowski

500688777

CRM 400 - 011

RESEARCH ESSAY: OPTION 2

What does the research say about the relationship between the high incarceration rates of
Indigenous peoples and the child welfare system (including IRS, Sixties Scoop, and the
Millennium Scoop)? Write a paper that analyzes how state violence intersects with issues
such as income, gender, race, and the settlement of Indigenous lands. Choose one issue or
provide compelling research on the intersection of two or more factors.

Submitted on: Wednesday 27th of November 2019

Since colonization, the Canadian government has had a hand in sidelining and attempting

to erase the Indigenous cultures from within its borders. They banned their culture and

introduced residential schools, which brought upon the Indigenous community a litany of

long term, multi generational problems ranging from alcoholism, child separation and

disproportionate incarceration levels.

From the moment the British forces landed on what was to become Canadian soil, their

goal was clear: claim the land and reap its benefits. They soon discovered the Indigenous

people on what was essentially according to their beliefs, their godly claimed land.

Like a parasite they slowly but surely gained the trust of the aboriginal people, and before

they could even realize what hit them they had their land stolen, culture outlawed, and

way of life turned upside down. The British deceived Indigenous bodies into handing

over their land by having them sign treaties. Then a decade after the unification of

Canada, in 1876, they promptly introduced the Indian Act. The goal of this act was “a

work of cradle-to-grave legislation that [sought] to govern every aspect of the lives of

qualifying First Nations in Canada.” (Morden, 2016, p. 115) With this legislation in place

the Canadian government forced the First Nations communities under its purview to

remain on their underfunded, poverty stricken reserves and were punished if they decided

to leave them.

With the Indigenous population under their thumb, the Canadian government moved on

to the next step to resolve the “Indian Problem”. In walks in Indian Affairs administrator

Duncan Campbell Scott, Author Brian Titley said:

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 “Scott était un candidat plus que convenable pour diriger les Affaires indiennes,

puisque ses vues, qui se reflétaient dans sa prose et dans sa poésie, évoquaient

parfaitement celles de l’élite politique du pays. Il décrivait les Indiens comme «

bizarres et sur le déclin », « vagabonds et dissolus » et enclins à la sauvagerie et

aux superstitions. Leur unique option, croyait Scott, consistait à s’intégrer dans

l’ensemble de la population, un processus qui nécessitait les « forces combinées

de l’intermariage et de l’éducation ». Mais puisque les Indiens étaient, selon sa

conception, primitifs et infantiles, la transformation souhaitée ne pouvait

s’effectuer autrement que sous la paternelle houlette de son ministère.”

The above peer-reviewed text explains Scott’s beliefs that the Indigenous people are

vagabonds, and inclined towards savagery and superstitions. Given that their population

numbers are dwindling already compared to the ever growing Canadian population, one

of the only options left to rid Canada of these according to Scott: “primitive and childlike

people” was to forcefully educate them and have them successfully assimilate with the

rest of the Canadian population. The text also touches upon the Canadian government’s

willingness to work with Duncan Campbell Scott given that the political stance his poetry

and writings took lined up with the Canadian governments beliefs at the time. With

Duncan at the helm, they immediately started ripping children away from their parents

and sending them far away to residential schools.

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Though some at the time would argue that sending the children to residential schools was

something noble, cultivating the minds of the uneducated, in actuality it was far from it.

In reality, the Indigenous communities that had their children taken away from them,

robbing their youth the ability to learn their shared language and culture from their

parents and elders. When the children would return home, on rare occasions, the heavy

indoctrination at the residential schools forced an even bigger divide between families.

On top of all of these processes, the Canadian government also stepped in and took

children away from their parents and put them up for adoption, completely shattering the

family dynamics. These actions taken by the Canadian government amounted to “the loss

of language and culture, loss of family and community life, intergenerational dysfunction,

and sexual, physical and psychological injuries, to loss of opportunity and loss of

income” (Mahoney, K., 2019, p. 207). This loss of family, community life and

intergenerational dysfunction led residential school survivors who became new parents

later in life to lack the skills to properly connect with their children on an emotional level.

On top of residential schools, the government not understanding or wanting to understand

the way of life led by the First Nations, often came in and stole kids to put them up for

adoption in white families because they believed the children were being mistreated at

the hands of their “Indian” parents and community. This exact thing happened to the

Semaganis siblings in CBC’s Finding Cleo podcast. Cleo and her five siblings, were part

of a wave of apprehensions of Indigenous children by the child welfare system during the

Sixties Scoop. Cleo was adopted by an American family while two of her siblings:

Johnny and Christine travelled through the Canadian child welfare system, the latter

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ending up being adopted by a white family in Saskatchewan, while the former, Johnny

was placed with a family who owned a farm in rural Pennsylvania. Johnny noted that

while there he was abused often which led to him running away and ending up with a

foster family in Ancaster.

The trauma many first nation children suffered by being separated from their culture and

community and being indoctrinated and at the mercy of the Canadian government was

later dealt with in unhealthy ways such as substance abuse and domestic abuse. In their

study of alcoholism within Manitoban First Nations and aboriginal women, Karen Doty-

Sweetnam and Patrick Morrissette interviewed various First Nations and Indigenous

women in Manitoba and one of them said:

“The whole issue of alcohol isn’t just about the drinking. That’s only the center of

the problem. The underlying issues of why people drink and why they try to numb

out whatever pain they have is the root cause and that’s what needs to be

addressed.”

She also indicated that children raised in alcoholic families learn not to trust, talk, or

share. The latter likely culminates in an eventual sense of personal isolation. (Doty-

Sweetnam et al, 2018, p. 244) Something that should be mentioned is that “Although

many Indigenous communities do struggle with SUDs, others do not.” (Whitesell,

Kaufman, 2017, p. 103) The misinterpretation that Indigenous people are hopeless

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substance abusers really hurt their image and further racist stereotypes that will not help

the healing process in their communities.

Substance abuse, personal isolation, and lack of trust can very often lead down a violent

path. With the lack of funding for proper rehabilitation services, a racist system, and the

very real belief that many Indigenous people have, which is that the cards are stacked

against them so they might as well accept plea deals and plead guilty instead of fighting

to get in front of a judge who might give them an even harsher sentence, many First

Nations youth and adults end up within the Canadian correctional system. According to

Statistics Canada, Adults and youth who identify as an Aboriginal person are

overrepresented in custody. Though the Indigenous adults only make up 4% of the

Canadian population they are represented by 30% of admissions to provincial/territorial

custody and 29% of admissions to federal custody while when looking at Indigenous

youth, they make up nearly half of all admissions to correctional institutions (43%) while

only representing about 8% of the Canadian youth population.

With parents in jail, many Indigenous kids do not have any immediate family who can

take care of them and they are then put into the Canadian foster care system, an updated

version of the one their parents may have had to suffer through.

Though the Devil’s advocate could make the argument that the Canadian government

stepping in again and taking children living in dismal situations is the morally right thing

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to do, given that article three of the United Nation’s Convention on the rights of the child

states: “The best interests of the child shall be a primary consideration.”

A counter argument against the Canadian government could be to take a gander at the

convention on the rights of the child’s article 9, which plans out how governmental

bodies should behave when the parents of the child are incarcerated or if the child is put

in foster care. The goal of the article is to stop the forceful separation of children from

their parents.

A healthy amount of governmental and non-profit agencies that had a hand in the

separation of children came out and apologized for their actions during the sixties scoop.

The Children’s Aid Society of Ontario wrote:

We as the non-Indigenous Children’s Aid Societies of Ontario apologize to

Indigenous families, children, and communities for our role in the Sixties Scoop

and our continued role in the present day over-representation of Indigenous

children in our system.

[…]

It is important that we acknowledge and appreciate the impact and meaning of

cultural genocide to the Indigenous people of Ontario. The Sixties Scoop has been

a continuation of the inter-generational traumas and cultural loss inflicted on

the Indigenous peoples of Ontario. There continues to be a lack of Indigenous

culture-based services for children and families, and there continues to be

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 resistance to Indigenous self-determination with respect to the care of their

children and families.

They also committed themselves to reconciliation by reducing the number of

Indigenous children in their care among other commitments.

Though there is not a definitive solution to the multi generational problems brought on by

colonization, the introduction of the Indian Act, residential schools, the Sixties Scoop,

etc. a balance needs to be struck…

If the Canadian government were to just throw money at the people in First Nations

communities, it would only solve a surface level amount of problems. The Canadian

government should move to fund infrastructure within the reserves, help them rebuilt a

strong community, talk to them, and listen, so nothing can be left to interpretation, and

once they are healed (which might not even happen in this generation or the next)

reconciliation can truly happen.

It is time to break the vicious circle; the past exists so we can learn from it.

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BIBLIOGRAPHY

An Apology to the Indigenous Community: Children's Aid Society. (n.d.). Retrieved

from http://www.parnipcas.org/about-us/apology.

Convention on the Rights of the Child. (n.d.). Retrieved from

https://www.ohchr.org/en/professionalinterest/pages/crc.aspx.

Doty-Sweetnam, K., & Morrissette, P. (2018). Alcohol abuse recovery through the lens
of manitoban first nations and aboriginal women: A qualitative study. Journal of
Ethnicity in Substance Abuse, 17(3), 237-254. doi:10.1080/15332640.2016.1138268
ABSTRACT We describe a phenomenological study that explored the experiences of
First Nations and Aboriginal women during their journey of recovery from alcohol abuse.
Seven women participated in individual, tape-recorded interviews, during which they
described their experiences, yielding written protocols that were thematically analyzed.
Results from this study revealed seven predominant themes that included the following:
(a) guilt and shame, (b) unresolved core issues, (c) resilience, (d) tenacity, (e) recovery
process, (f) family and friends, and (g) tradition and spirituality. Findings and
implications for clinicians, administrators, educators, and future research are included.

Mahoney, K. (2019). Indigenous legal principles: A reparation path for canada's cultural
genocide. American Review of Canadian Studies, 49(2), 207-230.
doi:10.1080/02722011.2019.1626099

Morden, M. (2016). Theorizing the resilience of the indian act: INDIAN ACT
RESILIENCE. Canadian Public Administration, 59(1), 113-133. doi:10.1111/capa.12162

Titley, B. (2007). DUNCAN CAMPBELL SCOTT, SURINTENDANT ADJOINT DES

AFFAIRES INDIENNES, 1913-1932 1

Whitesell, N. R., PhD, & Kaufman, C. E., PhD. (2016;2017;). Substance use disorders
among indigenous youth in developmental perspective: Diversity, Diagnostic tools, and
resilience. Journal of the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry, 56(2),
103-104. doi:10.1016/j.jaac.2016.12.005