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Claims process for First Nations child welfare class action opens in March, AFN says

Darpan News Desk The Canadian Press, 10 Feb, 2025 01:54 PM

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.

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