Cindy Blackstock Speaks at CYFN’s Education Conference

Tuesday, 28 January 2020 15:34

Cindy Blackstock at the Kwanlin Dün Cultural Centre today for the “Our Children. Our Education. Our Way” education conference today

The Council of Yukon First Nation’s education conference is underway this week at the Kwanlin Dün Cultural Centre, and Cindy Blackstock was in town as the event’s keynote speaker.

Blackstock is the Executive Director of the First Nations Child and Family Caring Society of Canada and a professor at the McGill University’s School of Social Work. She is well known for her activism surrounding the chronic underfunding of child welfare programs on reserves.

Blackstock spoke about the main purpose of her talk at the “Our Children. Our Education. Our Way” conference today. She says that the take home message is that equity is really important in the safety of first nations families and communities. Blackstock says that for far too long First Nations Communities have received less than the larger population, but have been judged by caring Canadians who didn’t know any better as if they got more. The Canadians human rights tribunal case is starting to remedy some of that but serious inequalities still exist in education, early childhood and basics like housing and water. She says we need to end those inequalities and affirm self determination and we could actually raise a generation of first nations kids that never need to recover from their childhoods.

Blackstock took the time to highlight the importance of a holistic approach to funding youth, family and children’s services in First Nations communities. She talked about the risk of creating specific budgets for child services projects, rather than tailoring budgets to the actual, current needs of communities.

She also commented on the strengths of smaller remote communities that are common in the Yukon. She says that she too was raised in a small remote community and that the sense of community and neighbours helping neighbours was one of the strongest strengths of these environments. She did however point out that often issues such as mental health, addictions and basic infrastructure are sometimes serious problems in these communities. Blackstock says however that the Canadian state has the power and ability to rectify these issues and that unfortunately there has been a lack of political will to address the problems.

Blackstock also took the time to identify what she felt the Yukon was doing well, and what can be improved. She says that there has been a lot of progress on Jordan’s Principle, with over $6 million of services going to First Nations kids in the Yukon. She does think there is an area for growth in the amount of prevention services being provided by the federal government as dictated by the tribunal. When it comes to trying to support families, Blackstock says it should be about determining what the specific needs of children are, rather than a fixed budget as determined by individuals in Ottawa.