After the notorious "Sixties Scoop" -- when so many aboriginal children were placed in foster care -- it seems First Nations children are doomed again, with more being placed in care now than at the height of the residential school system.
Instead of being at home with their parents and siblings, many First Nations kids are in foster homes, institutions, or living with distant relatives. In 2005, the number of kids in care was around 27,500 -- easily double the number of kids taken from their homes in the late 1940s and '50s. Since 2005, reports suggest that number has risen.
"It's a culmination of decades' worth of social ills," admits First Nations leader, John Beaucage. Social ills being the "disheartening mix of poverty, addiction, history and politics" that caused PM Stephen Harper to apologize to the First Nations.
It's estimated that First Nations children are eight times more likely than other Canadian kids to be in care, and more likely to be on welfare. Part of the problem: First Nations children are routinely sent into care because that's "where the funding is".
The approach is myopic, however, since it doesn't help families deal with their problems, which are mostly rooted in poverty and the legacy of the residential school system which "robbed the parents of first-hand knowledge of how to raise a family".
Studies have shown time and again that neglected children have impaired cognitive development. At least now children in trouble are placed in other First Nations homes where possible, and the majority wind up back at home, so family ties are not being severed as they were in the past.
The federal government is looking to fund a number of child welfare agencies to be run by First Nations themselves.
Why do you think First Nations kids are getting such a raw deal? What can, and should, be done to help them?
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