Quebec Court Allows Quebec Indigenous Child Welfare Class Action to Advance
MONTREAL, May 1, 2024 /CNW/ - A class action brought forward by two Quebec Inuit women against Canada and Quebec has been given the green light to proceed in a ruling released by the Quebec Superior Court yesterday.
The two Inuit women, both from the Northern Quebec region of Nunavik, were taken into care multiple times and suffered abuse and neglect at the hands of their caregivers. Their case alleges that Quebec and Canada neglected Indigenous children by prioritizing removal of Indigenous children from their homes and communities over prevention services that would have allowed them to stay within their families and communities. This prioritization of removals led to a decades-long crisis of lost childhoods, broken families and suffering within Indigenous communities throughout Quebec.
The case alleges that Canada abandoned its constitutional obligations to off-reserve Indigenous children and families by delegating their welfare and protection to the provinces without ensuring adequate standards and funding were in place to safeguard their wellbeing and preserve their culture. Left to an under-funded provincial welfare system that prioritized family breakups over keeping families together through prevention, Indigenous youth and their families were made to suffer discrimination and emotional harm compounded by the legacy of the Residential School system and the Sixties Scoop.
Yesterday's decision in A.B. et al. v. Attorney-General of Quebec et al. follows a ruling in 2022 in which the Quebec Court of Appeal declared:
Aboriginal children are overrepresented in youth protection systems throughout Canada. In addition to the suffering they must endure as a result of this situation, it has serious detrimental effects on them, their families and their communities, particularly as regards the preservation of their identity, language and culture. This reality, which was recently highlighted by a number of commissions of inquiry, is the subject of consensus and the Government of Quebec does not dispute it.
The judgment authorizing this class action also cites decades of reports and studies into Quebec's child welfare system that decried the lack of adequate funding and training that could have prevented or lessened the mass removals. In one report on the state of the child welfare system in Nunavik, Quebec's Human Rights Commission found "the fundamental rights of the children and young people, as recognized in sections 1, 4 and 39 of Québec's Charter of human rights and freedoms, have been infringed."
About this decision, representative plaintiff Tanya Jones, said:
"The whole reason why I decided to bring this case was so that I could come out of the shadows that child welfare cast over my childhood and my life to this day. I wanted to find the courage to get back my voice and speak out about what happened to me and other Inuit children like myself. I wanted our stories and our truth to be told. I am happy that this judgment allows our claim to move forward and for our stories to be told. I am happy that we get our day in court so that not only me, but all Indigenous children in Quebec affected by a broken system, like myself, can speak their truth and find healing."
Representative plaintiff A.B., whose identity is covered by a confidentiality order, stated:
"I still have scars on my body and face from the abuse I suffered as a child in care. I feel shame in my own body, even now that I am a grandmother. A lot of Indigenous children like me went through this trauma. We are also human beings. I don't want us to be left behind."
The decision is one in a series of cases instituted in the Federal Court and in various provincial courts on behalf of Inuit, Métis, and off-reserve First Nation youth and their caregivers who have been left out of the recent $23.34 billion settlement in Moushoom et al. v. Canada (Moushoom), despite having suffered the very same forms of discrimination as the on-reserve First Nations youth and families covered by the Moushoom settlement.
In June 2022, the Federal Court certified Stonechild v. Canada on behalf of a class of Indigenous youth living off-reserve who suffered a loss of their cultural identity as a consequence of being apprehended and placed into state care. A.B. et al. v. Attorney-General of Quebec et al. is the first provincial case to be authorized to proceed as a class action. Courts in British Colombia, Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba and Ontario will decide in upcoming hearings whether to allow similar cases to proceed in their provinces.
Plaintiff counsel, Mohsen Seddigh, noted:
"By settling the Moushoom case, Canada has taken the necessary steps of reforming the on-reserve child welfare system and compensating the children and families who suffered discrimination under it. But the children and families who live off-reserve are every bit as Indigenous and suffered from the very same treatment. Yet they are left out in the cold, having to continue to fight their provincial and federal governments for justice in courts all across Canada. We hope that this decision from the Quebec Superior Court will cause the governments to recognize their wrongs and do the right thing: stop fighting the kids. Many lives hang in the balance."
For further information, please contact:
Alexandre Brosseau-Wery
Kugler Kandestin, LLP
William Colish
Alexeev Attorneys, LLP
David Sterns or Mohsen Seddigh
Sotos LLP
Louis-Nicholas Coupal
Coupal Chauvelot S.A.
SOURCE Sotos Class Actions
News published on and distributed by:
