Quebec seeks changes to youth protection law

Quebec has tabled a bill that proposes to shift the way youth protection workers place Indigenous children going into care, by placing an emphasis on the child’s cultural identity. (FILE IMAGE)

The Quebec government plans to table a bill later this year that aims to change how Indigenous children across the province are placed in foster homes.

Bill 99, An Act to Amend the Youth Protection Act and other provisions, seeks to include a child’s community and cultural identify as factors in deciding what type of foster setting is best suited.

The proposed amendments, introduced by Quebec’s public health minister, Lucie Charlebois, earlier this year, suggests the following additions to the act:

• inclusion of cultural identify as one factor to be considered as part of what is in an Indigenous child’s best interests;

• provision that Indigenous children must be entrusted to a setting that seeks to preserve child’s cultural identify; and,

• obligation for youth protection services in Indigenous communities to notify the community that a child is to be removed from its home, while seeking the community’s co-operation.

It’s not clear what implications the new legislation, if passed, could have for Inuit communities in Nunavik where efforts are already made to keep Inuit children in the care of relatives as much as possible.

Neither Quebec’s current Youth Protection Act nor the proposed legislation make specific mention of Inuit communities.

Quebec’s department of Aboriginal Affairs and the Nunavik Regional Board of Health and Social Services did not return Nunatsiaq News’ requests for information.

Statistics show that Indigenous children are over-represented in child welfare systems across the country.

In Quebec, where the Indigenous population makes up two per cent of the province’s population, Indigenous children make up 10 per cent of all children in care.

In Nunavik in 2015-16, 374 children were placed in foster care. That’s up from 327 in 2013-14 and 348 in 2014-15.

But Nunavik health officials won’t provide statistics on where those children were placed — if they were placed with Inuit or non-Inuit families, in their home communities or in a southern setting.

The Nunavik Regional Board of Health and Social Services said that information could identify children in care.

The Quebec Human Rights Commission, which in 2007 released a major report criticizing Nunavik’s youth protection services, called Quebec’s youth protection act “poorly applied” and “poorly adapted to Inuit culture.”

“The introduction of government-run services has set aside the traditional methods of support for people experiencing difficulty, but the services have failed to adapt to Inuit culture and reality,” the report said.

Communities in Nunavik are working to deal with the issue locally; both Kuujjuaraapik and more recently Kangiqsualujjuaq have recently opened family homes, a resource for children at risk of being placed under youth protection before that happens, while also offering counselling to their parents and caregivers.