Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...
|
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s claim to support Indigenous compensation is “out of step” with his legal submission to block it, according to a leading First Nations children’s advocate.
The federal government is fighting a $2 billion compensation ruling over failures in First Nations child services.
Today, a federal court is holding a case conference to look at the government’s request for a judicial review.
Cindy Blackstock, executive director of the First Nations Child and Family Caring Society of Canada, told CTV’s Your Morning that Trudeau and opposition leader Andrew Scheer’s remarks that they would support compensation are “entirely out of step with their legal submissions that said they didn’t want to pay anything.”
Blackstock highlighted the ongoing legal battle between the federal government and the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal (CHRT) which has ordered compensation for Indigenous families over discrimination of child welfare funding.
The federal government has been ordered to reimburse tens of thousands of First Nations children who were harmed by or denied essential family services. The tribunal ruled that Canada must reimburse each of the more than 50,000 children apprehended or denied welfare services with $40,000, meaning the total compensation will likely exceed $2 billion.
The government is appealing the damage award, saying the election made it impossible to organize compensation by the Dec. 10 deadline.
[…]
See Also:
(1) Dropping the carbon tax will go a long way for unity
(2) Rethinking the shameless election, and how it was covered — damp squib and all
(4) Trudeau may claim to be humble, but he sure doesn’t act it
(5) Don’t rewrite history on terror attacks, Trudeau