Claims process for First Nations child welfare class action opens in March, AFN says

By Canadian Press on February 10, 2025.

OTTAWA — The Assembly of First Nations says children and their families who lived under Canada’s First Nations child welfare system from 1991 to 2022 can apply for a class action settlement starting in March.

National Chief Cindy Woodhouse Nepinak says the settlement is an acknowledgment of the harms First Nations people experienced under a “racist system that has broken so many lives and families.”

In 2023, the Federal Court approved a $23 billion settlement to compensate some 300,000 First Nations children and their families for Canada’s chronic underfunding of on-reserve child welfare services.

The settlement agreement followed a 2019 Canadian Human Rights Tribunal (CHRT) ruling that ordered Ottawa to pay the maximum penalty for discrimination — $40,000 — to each child inappropriately removed from their homes, as well as their parents or grandparents.

Assembly of Manitoba Chiefs Grand Chief Kyra Wilson says the claims process will be trauma-informed and claimants will not need to relive their experiences, as was the case with other First Nations-led class actions.

The first batch of claims will open March 10 and each claim is expected to take around six to 12 months to process.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Feb. 10, 2025.

Alessia Passafiume, The Canadian Press