Fallout continues after the Saskatchewan Ministry of Social Services’ announcement that it would strip Saskatoon Tribal Council (STC) of its responsibility for delivering child welfare services.
A decision, minister Donna Harpauer said was strictly about the safety of vulnerable children after STC repeatedly refused the province access to its on-reserve files.
“We would like to negotiate a new agreement by all means, we have a very good strong relationship with 16 other First Nations agencies who are complying with standardized level of care and reporting to the ministry,” said Harpauer on Tuesday at the legislature.
“We are not asking anything more of the Saskatoon Tribal Council, however they are resisting giving us any information.”
READ MORE: Social services taking over children’s care from Saskatoon Tribal Council
Fast-forward to Wednesday morning and officials with the ministry arrived at STC as promised by Harpauer. They were there to retrieve some 67 child welfare files and they left emptied handed.
“As advised by our legal counsel, we refused to provide the files they requested and they left without incident,” said tribal chief Felix Thomas for STC.
Since 2008, the ministry says it has tried to work with STC to complete a new delegation agreement for delivering theses services which includes standard accountability and reporting requirements.
These attempts were unsuccessful leaving the ministry no other choice but to take over effectively immediately after being left in the dark about these children and their well-being for far too long.
“We know where they are, how they are and work with both the families and community to ensure they care,” said Thomas.
“I would like to reassure everyone that the children, in our care, are not at risk. This is an issue of jurisdictional control. On-reserve issues are between the federal government and First Nations governments.”
As for the allegations, Ottawa has its own set of concerns regarding the services being provided and an agreement between Indigenous and Northern Affairs Canada and STC for financial support has not been entered into the 2016-17 fiscal year. Thomas said nonsense.
“We’re going to proceed, the delegation agreement is terminated and we’ll have to go through the courts to access the files,” said Harpauer on Wednesday.
Even the province’s watchdog for children’s services weighed in and sided with the ministry.
“My position is that we have a legal obligation to represent all children in the province, on or off-reserve,” said Saskatchewan Children’s Advocate Bob Pringle.
“We want and expect cooperation from Saskatoon Tribal Council.”
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“First, let me say we are devastated by the deaths of these two children in our communities. We have worked with the Children’s Advocate on both of them. While it is true that these children were living in the community, at no time were these children ever in the care of STC’s Child and Family Services agency. These were tragic events, and we are not at liberty to discuss the cases any further in a public forum,” said the statement.
The chief also stated STC will continue to operate as the legal authority.
“We ensure that our operating practices are to the highest standards of accountability the suggestion that we are lax in responsibilities is certainly offensive.”
The minister replied “By all means if he is giving a higher level of care that is awesome but we don’t know.”
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