Liberal Budget Fails Indigenous Youth and Ignores Tribunal Ruling
March 30, 2016
Indigenous youth forced to go to court to fight for basic care
OTTAWA- It’s been two months since the damning indictment by the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal that called on the government to immediately end the systemic denial of services to Indigenous youth. And yet the Liberal budget has ignored the tribunal’s call for immediate remedies. They didn’t deliver one cent to implement Jordan’s principle in the health care system and they shortchanged action on child welfare reform by 130 million dollars.
“For every day the government waits, First Nations kids continue to be at risk and children in care face another 10,000 sleepless nights. If a legal finding of racial discrimination of kids at risk isn’t enough to light a fire under this government, I don’t know what it is going to take for the Liberals to step up to the plate and protect these kids,” said MP Charlie Angus.
The failure to implement Jordan’ Principle, a principle requiring governments to deliver service immediately and then figure out jurisdictional disputes, means that Health Canada is continuing to deny Indigenous children access to health services. This past week, an Indigenous family was forced to go to court in an attempt to force the Liberal government to provide badly-needed orthodontic care. Angus has written to Health Minister Jane Philpott over the failure to respect the Tribunal ruling.
“We have a ruling by the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal that ordered the federal government to stop systematically denying medical services to Indigenous children. Instead the government is defying Indigenous families and fighting them in court,” added Angus.
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Letter to Minister Philpott:
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