Stolen Land, Stolen Children: The Canadian Child Welfare System’s Role in the Genocide of Indigenous Populations

From Residential Schools, to foster homes and adoption into White families: the ongoing systemic genocide of Indigenous populations in so-called Canada.

Regardless of Canada’s efforts to distance itself from its violent colonial past, systems of forced assimilation and oppression of Indigenous peoples are constantly redesigned, and are part of the ongoing genocide of Indigenous populations. The welfare system and adoption into White
families serve as an extension of the Residential School System, and uphold practices of forced removal of Indigenous children from their families and communities.

Canada is widely perceived as a nation that is peaceful, multicultural, and equal; a humanitarian leader and human rights advocate (Stevenson, 2019). This image is a result of careful brandingefforts (Adese, 2012), and the erasure of Canada’s history of violence against, and forced assimilation of, Indigenous peoples, from dominant narratives. However, as recognized by organizations such as United Nations or Canadian Human Rights tribunal, Canada’s atrocities against Indigenous communities, and specifically Indigenous children, are not a part of a shameful past, but rather, a shameful present (Stevenson, 2019; Engel, Philips, & A. DellaCava,
2012).

The ongoing atrocities against Indigenous families can be considered one of Canada’s best kept secrets. Indigenous communities don’t have access to safe drinking water, affordable nutritious foods, or schools, and the poverty rates among Indigenous children living on reserve are 60%, compared to 13% of settler children (Stevenson, 2019). Furthermore, Indigenous children are
overrepresented in the foster system, as they account for 52.2% of children in foster care, but only 7.7% of the child population in Canada (Government of Canada, 2020)

To understand these drastic inequities, we have to first understand Canada’s colonial practices
that have led to them. The Residential School System was a boarding school system set up by the
Canadian government, that forcibly removed Indigenous children from their homes and families.
The children were forced to abandon their language, culture, and heritage, and assimilated into
White society’s way of living, with the intent of destruction of Indigenous society and culture
(Hanson, n.d.). The Residential School system has since been recognized as a form of cultural
genocide (Cohen, 2015). families serve as an extension of the Residential School System, and uphold practices of forced removal of Indigenous children from their families and communities.

Although the last Residential School closed in 1996, the system of forced removal of Indigenous
children and the ongoing genocide was not over, but rather replaced by the child welfare system.
The Sixties Scoop refers to the mass removal of Indigenous children from their families, often
without the family’s consent, into the child welfare system, that accelerated in the 1960s
(Hanson, n.d.). Indigenous children were placed with non-Indigenous families, leading to the
loss of culture, language, and connection to families and communities (Stevenson, 2019). As
demonstrated by prevailing overrepresentation of Indigenous children in the welfare system, the
Sixties Scoop has not come to an end (Sinclair, 2017).

The Sixties Scoop and ensuing child welfare system are grounded in a perspective that it is in the
child’s best interest to be removed from Indigenous communities, and placed in a White family.
Social workers believed apprehension from reserves would save children form poverty,
unsanitary health conditions, poor housing, and malnutrition. They failed to understand historical
factors that have led to these conditions, as well as to acknowledge government’s responsibility
for them (Stevenson, 2019).

Adoption projects ads utilized colonial understanding of child’s best interest to create the common belief of the necessity of Indigenous child removal, due to poor conditions and Indigenous peoples’ inability to parent (Stevenson, 2019). In reality, many of the characteristics that have been used to portray Indigenous people as inadequate parents, such as poor mental health (including depression and substance misuse), are long-term and
intergenerational effects of residential schools (Wilk, Maltby, & Cooke, 2017)

The justice system has played a big role in upholding the child removal system, by utilizing “best interest of the child” in a way that best serves non-Indigenous interests (Sinclair, 2017). Contrary to research, legal decisions such as Justice Wilson’s in Racine v. Wood prioritize attachment and bonding with foster family over cultural and racial considerations as best interest of the child (Sinclair, 2017), setting precedence for courts to be more likely to rule in favor of the foster family. The rhetoric of child’s best interest has been twisted so that in reality, it serves White people’s best interest (Sinclair, 2017).

So, what is in the child’s best interest?

The significance of cultural background and heritage for children increases over time, as do
racial and cultural needs (Sinclair, 2017). One’s racial identity shapes social interactions and
future life chances, and connections to people with whom you share race, culture, and heritage
are crucial for racial identity formation and racial navigation (Sinclair, 2017; Killian & Khanna,
2019).

Racial and ethnic socializations prepare
children for racial bias and are predictors of
self-esteem and well-being; however, 41% of
parents who have adopted transracially
stated race and ethnicity were not an
important part of their child’s socialization
(Killian & Khanna, 2019). White parents areless likely to think about race and ethnicity, possibly because it is not a salient factor in their lived experiences (Killian & Khanna, 2019). However, the fact that they do not “see” the race of their adoptive child, doesn’t mean it will not play a huge role in the child’s life. This
demonstrates that White people are not equipped to parent Indigenous children, as the lack of understanding of the importance of racial socialization can have grave consequences. For example, White parents do not know they need to discuss with their non-White children how to behave in a situation with a police officer (Killian & Khanna, 2019), while Indigenous populations in Canada are disproportionately victims of police brutality. Racial socialization can
literally be the matter of life and death; as such, it is not in the Indigenous child’s best interest to be placed with a White family.

Evidently, it is also not in the best interest of Indigenous populations. Non-White children
adopted by White parents report lower levels of racial identification, pointing to transracial
adoption’s efficacy as a tool of cultural assimilation (Karpman, Ruppel, & Torres, 2018). As transracial adoption puts restraints on the intergenerational transmission of culture and leads to loss of tradition and history, many organizations and activists recognize it as a form of cultural genocide (Killian & Khanna, 2019).

The welfare system is just one of the ways racism against Indigenous populations has been institutionalized in Canada. It is important to understand how these systems uphold White supremacy, through forced assimilation into the colonialist culture, considered more “civil” or “valuable”. Atrocities and violations of human rights happen in Canada to this day, such as coerced sterilization of Indigenous women (International Justice Resource Center, n.d.), access to safe drinking water on reserves, and the racialization of poverty. This proves that genocide of Indigenous populations in Canada is ongoing, and embedded in our systems. One can easily see Canada oppresses, and suppress the growth of, Indigenous populations.

Shocking, isn’t it? But none of this is new. Indigenous activists, scholars, organizations, and
politicians have been arguing this for decades, but their voices have been silenced, and are absent from dominant discourse. Carefully crafted school curricula, political discussions, and media narratives omit just enough to make the society feel that these injustices are part of our past, and not a major ongoing issue we must still solve. Indigenous communities are struggling to survive, and rather than addressing the economic and political conditions that have led to this, the government further destroys Indigenous families and communities by taking away their children. The genocide of Indigenous peoples through systems of forced child removal started with Residential Schools, and continues to date with the Canadian child welfare system.