AFN votes on way forward after $47.8 billion child welfare reform deal is defeated

OTTAWA — First Nations chiefs have voted in favour of a new negotiation process to reform the child welfare system after a $47.8-billion deal with Canada was defeated Thursday evening at an Assembly of First Nations gathering in Calgary.

It calls for the creation of a children’s chiefs’ commission comprised of leadership from all regions in the country, and for a new negotiation and legal team.

The defeated deal was struck between Canada, the Chiefs of Ontario, Nishnawbe Aski Nation and the Assembly of First Nations after a nearly two-decade legal fight over the federal government’s underfunding of on-reserve child welfare services.

The Canadian Human Rights Tribunal said that was discriminatory.