First Nations child and family services deal has potential to radically transform – and improve – Indigenous relationships with rest of Canada: Ken Coates for Inside Policy – MLI
August 20, 2024
The emergence of child and family services as a “top of mind” issue owes a great deal to community-level groups and Indigenous women’s associations.
Some of the most profound governance revolutions are buried deep in the pages of complex constitutional documents and legal accords. Only a few people, reviewing the Canada Act 1982, forecast long-term political tensions over the use of the “notwithstanding” clause in the new constitution. The drafters of first set of amendments to the American constitution could scarcely have imagined that the “right to bear arms” would morph into contemporary gun culture in the United States. So, it is with the rather unpoetic “Agreement on Long-Term Reform on the First Nations Child and Family Services Program,” which has the potential to transform Indigenous governance as it currently operates in Canada.
