Standing on a stage in a room full of parishioners, band council members and government ministers, Donny Morris, chief of Kitchenuhmaykoosib Inninuwug (KI), described it as an emotional day for his parish.
“We’re taking back how we raise our kids,” Morris said Tuesday.
The First Nation of approximately 960 people who live in the Fly-In community 600 kilometers north of Thunder Bay, Ontario, is taking back responsibility for children and family services with the passage of its own legislation and the creation of its own family welfare agency. called Kitchenuhmaykoosib Inninuwug Dibenjikewin Onnakonikewin (KIDO). In the local Anishininiimowin language, KIDO means Family Law of Kitchenuhmaykoosib Inninuwug.
“We will move forward, and moving forward means everyone has a role to play — boss and council, families, organizations — each and every one of us will come together to lead our community toward a brighter future, a prosperous community and ours Children should have stable homes,” Morris said during his speech.
This is only the second First Nation in Ontario — the other being Wabaseemoong Independent Nation, an Ojibway First Nation northwest of Kenora — and the seventh across Canada to enact its own Child and Family Benefits Act with the full force of federal law leaves in Bill C-92 on Indigenous Child Welfare Authorities.
A coordination agreement was signed between KI, Ontario and Canada to formally transition authority over children and family services in the First Nation. As part of the negotiations, the federal government has agreed to provide $93.8 million over four years to help AI implement its law. According to a press release, the Ontario government is still negotiating a funding agreement with KI.
“I didn’t think I would survive just to see this day,” Clara Sainnawap, an Oji-Cree First Nation elder, said on Anishininiimowin, while Angus Chapman translated her words into English.
The Onaakonikewin (Act) officially went into effect on April 1, but it has been a work in progress within the First Nation for many years, Samuel McKay told CBC News. McKay was the project manager for the development of KI’s family law.
Elders and community leaders began drafting the law in 2007, well before the federal government was discussing returning responsibility for child and family care to Indigenous communities. At the time, AI leaders developed the law not based on federal legislation, but on their inherent right and responsibility conferred upon them by the Creator to govern their own people, McKay said.
That work was sidetracked when six members of the KI board, including McKay, were sentenced to six months in prison after refusing to allow mining company Platinex to start drilling on their land despite the company’s refusal to do so by a court order disposal allowed.
Samuel McKay, Kitchenuhmaykoosib Inninuwug’s family law project coordinator, says the new law will focus on support and unity among families and in the First Nation. (Submitted by TAG Creative Strategy)
Efforts to return the law began in earnest in 2018, McKay said, and were approved after extensive community meetings and consultations.
McKay told CBC News that provincial legislation has always focused heavily on child protection, but KI’s new law will emphasize support for the entire family. Elders in the community said this new law must be based on love, forgiveness and respect and not lead to further traumatization of children or families.
“That’s what KIDO is about – rebuilding our nation, our families, our children.”
McKay added that the newly formed agency will continue to work with Tikinagan Child and Family Services. It has provided child protection services to 30 First Nations people in northern Ontario since becoming the first Aboriginal-controlled agency in the province to be recognized as a child protection agency in the 1980s.
When Federal Minister for Indigenous Services Patty Hajdu rose to speak during Tuesday’s signing ceremony, she confirmed Sainnawap’s words.
“One simple sentence – she’s been waiting for this day for a long time,” Hajdu said of the eldest. “It means she has long seen the pain and harm families endured as a result of discriminatory and systemically racist child and family services tearing people apart who were not providing the kind of support families need that are.” did not recognize the inherent right of this community to remain intact.”
The minister said the creation of KIDO marks a turning point as AI will be able to reassert their inherent rights and laws and receive the funds needed to implement that law.
After the signing ceremony, the AI held a community festival to celebrate the creation of the law.