Tribunal orders Ottawa, First Nations to resume child welfare reform talks

The Canadian Human Rights Tribunal is ordering parties involved in a decade-long child welfare case to work together – or separately – to reform the system and stop Ottawa from further discriminating against First Nations children.

The order comes nine years after the tribunal concluded that the federal government had discriminated against First Nations children by underfunding the on-reserve child welfare system, following a joint 2007 human rights complaint from the Assembly of First Nations and the Caring Society.