‘I’m not going to roll over and die today’: Ovide Mercredi on CFS reform

 In NCI News

 

 

(Winnipeg, MB.)

Pictured: AMC Chiefs gather at the Canad Inn’s Club Regent conference hall to discuss the Final Settlement Agreement with FNCFS.

               Former National Chief of the Assembly of First Nations (AFN) Ovide Mercredi spoke at the Assembly of Manitoba Chief’s Special Chief Assembly. The Assembly allowed provincial Chiefs to discuss and decide on the final settlement agreement concerning the future, well-being, and protection of children in CFS care.

Mercredi, one of the first to speak at the Assembly, emphasized how important it is to have First Nations people sitting at the table when defining the rules of the agreement. 

“We don’t follow the Indian Act rules because that doesn’t define us anymore, children are floating around with no one looking out for them. Our definition of citizenship applies. It’s not defined by the Indian Act for reform,” Mercredi says. 

In 2022, the Canadian government agreed that long-term reform included compensation of roughly $20 billion spread out over 5 years to be given to children and those who aged out of CFS on-reserve, leaving off-reserve children out of the agreement. 

Mercredi reminded the Chiefs that were gathered that Indigenous peoples have been creating laws for millennia, “We have the history of reform, we shouldn’t be operating within Federal law”, Mercredi says.

Mercredi refocused on the main issue, that this agreement is for the health needs of children who were and are still being affected by Child and Family Services. “I’m not going to roll over and die today.”. 

The final settlement agreement will come to a vote in Calgary on October 17th, 2024, where over 600 Chiefs from AFN will decide if the agreement moves forward. 

 

Written by: Kapanaise Thiebaut. Community Reporter with NCIFM.

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