Ottawa tells First Nations chiefs committee to sort out child welfare talks with AFN

OTTAWA — Indigenous Services Minister Patty Hajdu says Ottawa needs the Assembly of First Nations (AFN) and a committee trying to renegotiate a child welfare agreement to decide who’s leading the talks before any progress can be made.

“There has been confusion regarding the role of the National Children’s Chiefs Committee and whether you and the committee are the body that Canada should be working with,” says a Feb. 25 letter from Hajdu to the chair of the National Children’s Chiefs Commission.

“I would encourage the National Children’s Chiefs Commission to work directly with officials from the Assembly of First Nations … to clarify this situation.”

After seeing Hajdu’s letter, the Assembly of First Nations said it has made it “consistently clear” to the federal government that it must negotiate with the National Children’s Chiefs Commission.

Chiefs at two Assembly of First Nations gatherings last October and December voted against a $47.8 billion deal that would have given them control over the on-reserve child welfare system after the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal (CHRT) found Canada discriminated against First Nations kids by underfunding services.

They also voted to create a new body to negotiate child welfare reform with Canada, saying the Assembly of First Nations wasn’t working in their best interests.

Chief Pauline Frost of Vuntut Gwitchin First Nation, chair of the newly-formed National Children’s Chiefs Commission, said the commission has been stonewalled by Ottawa.

She sent a letter to Hajdu, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Crown-Indigenous Relations Minister Gary Anandasangaree in late January asking for them to return to the table, but received no response.

“They have an obligation to work with each of our regions. That was the whole objective of the outcomes of the Human Rights Tribunal,” Frost said last week.

“The commission has full confidence that an agreement — one that meets (the needs) of First Nations families and children — is entirely possible.”

More than a month after Frost’s initial letter, Hajdu responded by suggesting the AFN hasn’t said who is actually leading the talks.

Since the national deal was voted down, the AFN has sought legal reviews of the resolutions passed by chiefs outlining the new negotiation process and teams. Some have accused the AFN of using the legal reviews to retain control of the child welfare negotiations.

The talks with Canada have been mired in controversy since last year, when a handful of regional chiefs accused AFN National Chief Woodhouse Nepinak of keeping the AFN’s child welfare negotiations with Canada secret — a claim she has repeatedly denied.

Those accusations came to a head again in January after the chiefs rejected the national deal and Ottawa told the AFN it would negotiate a new deal with Ontario but not on a national level.

Following the federal government’s statement, Woodhouse Nepinak sent a letter to the First Nations Child and Family Caring Society — which helped to launch the initial human rights complaint — asking it how it intended to secure elements of the national deal chiefs rejected with a federal election likely in the near future.

The Caring Society is not in charge of negotiations but its executive director, Cindy Blackstock, had highlighted what she called shortcomings in the deal.

Six regional chiefs then sent a letter to Woodhouse Nepinak questioning her independence.

“Your comments and timing of this letter coinciding with the Justice Canada correspondence calls into question the required independence of the national chief from the Liberal party and the Government of Canada, writ large,” they wrote on Jan. 15.

They said the National Children’s Chiefs Commission was being “hindered by Canada’s refusal to engage nationally and the lack of alignment between the AFN and the chiefs-in-assembly resolutions.”

Woodhouse Nepinak has been criticized over her ties to the Liberal party since she was elected in 2023. She has said her main priority is advocating for First Nations.

In a statement issued Thursday, the Assembly of First Nations said “the national chief works with all political parties to advance the interests of First Nations children and families, as has always been the case.”

“The AFN has consistently made it clear to Canada that they must return to the table with a new mandate to negotiate an agreement with the (commission), as directed by the First Nations-in-Assembly,” said AFN spokesperson Genna Benson in a media statement.

“The AFN will continue supporting the (commission) and all regions as they pursue a long-term reform agreement, whether national or regional, that ends discrimination once and for all.”

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Feb. 28, 2025.

Alessia Passafiume, The Canadian Press