The Assembly of First Nations says children and their families who lived under Canada's First Nations child welfare system from 1991 to 2022 can apply for a class action settlement starting in March.
National Chief Cindy Woodhouse Nepinak says the settlement is an acknowledgment of the harms First Nations people experienced under a "racist system that has broken so many lives and families."
In 2023, the Federal Court approved a $23 billion settlement to compensate some 300,000 First Nations children and their families for Canada's chronic underfunding of on-reserve child welfare services.
The settlement agreement followed a 2019 Canadian Human Rights Tribunal (CHRT) ruling that ordered Ottawa to pay the maximum penalty for discrimination — $40,000 — to each child inappropriately removed from their homes, as well as their parents or grandparents.
Assembly of Manitoba Chiefs Grand Chief Kyra Wilson says the claims process will be trauma-informed and claimants will not need to relive their experiences, as was the case with other First Nations-led class actions.
The first batch of claims will open March 10 and each claim is expected to take around six to 12 months to process.
