First Nations sue Canada over child-welfare system’s destruction of culture, language – CBC

Mar 14, 2023

Proposed class action seeks collective compensation for community-level harms

Ten Prairie-based First Nations are suing the Canadian government over the loss of language, culture and tradition inflicted on communities by the modern First Nations child-welfare system.

Chief David Crate of Fisher River Cree Nation north of Winnipeg is the lead plaintiff in the proposed class-action lawsuit filed Jan. 31 in Federal Court, the latest in a series of battles over the chronic underfunding of child and family services on reserves and in the Yukon.

Crate and nine other chiefs are seeking collective compensation for alleged community-level harms exacted by the “mass scooping” of First Nations kids into state custody for more than three decades.

“Unfortunately, I’ve seen first-hand the damage done, not only to the individuals but also to my community,” said Harold (Sonny) Cochrane, who is from Fisher River and a lawyer on the case with Indigenous law firm Cochrane Saxberg in Winnipeg.

“The intergenerational trauma, the addiction rates, the poverty, all of those unfortunate results flow from the child-welfare practices and programs of the federal government.”

Read More: https://www.cbc.ca/news/indigenous/first-nations-class-action-child-welfare-collective-1.6777536