An alarming number of aboriginal kids are in care
Vancouver Sun
October 6, 2006

Letters: By Karen Isaac, Executive director, BC Aboriginal Child Care Society, West Vancouver

Re: Children in care have a tough time, and the rules don't help, Paul Willcocks; and An alarming rate of child removal, Soundoff/Edward Kruk, Oct. 2

We were surprised and disappointed that neither of these two columns about the findings of the Joint Special Report on the Health and Well-being of Children in Care in British Columbia commented on the shocking finding that 49 per cent of these children are aboriginal children when they are only seven per cent of the children in the province. Neither is there any mention of the startling increase in the number of aboriginal children in care from 2,901 in 1997 to 4,425 in 2005, while the number of non-aboriginal children in care decreased from 6,309 to 4,425.

For those of us working with aboriginal children and their families, the report reflects a tragic everyday reality that no one in government seems prepared to acknowledge. As if all of this were not bad enough, we now fear that with the Conservative government's cancellation of the federal-provincial agreements that currently provide funding for early childhood development and support to families, the numbers of aboriginal children in care in B.C. will increase even further. The human costs and the financial costs are enormous. It makes no sense to us.

We see desperate aboriginal families moving back and forth from rural areas to the cities seeking a better future for themselves and their children and not finding it. We have to ask the questions not asked but raised by the findings of the Joint Special Report: Why is this happening and why can our families and communities not be supported to the extent necessary to prevent this suffering?

After more than a century of having our lands and resources expropriated for the benefit of other British Columbians, enduring the paternalistic rule of the Indian Act and surviving the abusive residential school experience, we deserve better. We had hoped that we were moving forward, but the findings of the report suggest otherwise.