Cuban government apologizes to Montreal-area family after delivering wrong body
Cuba's foreign affairs minister has apologized to a Montreal-area family after they were sent the wrong body following the death of a loved one.
The last residential school closed in the 1990s, with most phased out in the decades prior to that, but the pain that comes from family separation is still a reality for tens of thousands of Indigenous people.
Every year, thousands of Indigenous children are separated from their parents, their communities and their culture by the child welfare system, a system that, in many ways, continues the cycle of colonial violence.
jaye simpson grew up in five different foster homes in British Columbia. And in that time, they had little connection to their Indigenous heritage.
“There’s often times language about the youth-in-care system that the system is ‘broken.’ I am in firm belief that it isn’t broken -- that it’s by design, and it’s doing exactly what it’s meant to do,” they told CTV News.
As Canada began to shutter residential schools, the '60s Scoop began, a period when thousands of First Nations boys and girls were taken from their parents and placed in foster care with non-Indigenous families.
The unbroken cycle continues to this day, now called the Millennium Scoop.
“They have not learned the history of residential schools,” Cindy Blackstock, an activist for Indigenous child welfare and executive director of the First Nations Child and Family Caring Society of Canada said. “They are repeating the same kind of government behaviours that led to those children suffering.”
According to the 2016 census, Indigenous children make up just 7.7 per cent of the child population, and yet 52.2 per cent of children in foster care are Indigenous.
First Nations children are apprehended by social services at 14 times the rate of non-Indigenous kids, and just under 15,000 Indigenous children under the age of 15 are in the foster care system.
Advocates say proper funding for housing, education and health care could eliminate many of the reasons governments cite for separating families to begin with.
Forty per cent of Indigenous children live in poverty, compared to seven per cent of non-Indigenous kids.
“For some inexplicable reason over the years, a system built up that just said the easiest thing to do is to take these children away from their families, and, you know, we look at that and say, that's not the answer to solving these problems,” Jane Philpott, former Indigenous Relations Minister, told CTV News.
An expansive report published last spring, called ‘Cash Back’, dove into how Canada has profited from Indigenous land while also chronically underfunding Indigenous communities.
It feeds into a toxic loop where Indigenous people are blamed if there is poverty in their communities, while receiving none of the support required to pull themselves out of that poverty. And then children are removed from homes deemed unsuitable, often because of poverty.
Yet, instead of investing more in Indigenous communities and organizations, Canada continues to fight Indigenous families in court, losing a pair of appeals yesterday on rulings relating to funding for Indigenous children.
“We want them to thrive as children, so let's funnel the monies that way,” Blackstock said. “And the good news is, for every dollar that government spends right now, it's going to save $18 downstream because healthy, happy kids grow into healthy, happy adults who don't need the level of public support as adults that someone who has been traumatized would.”
The ache that comes from being separated from family is far too familiar for many Indigenous people in this country — and it continues to perpetuate intergenerational trauma in exponential ways. Many in care today have parents who grew up in foster homes as well.
Cuba's foreign affairs minister has apologized to a Montreal-area family after they were sent the wrong body following the death of a loved one.
The federal government's proposed change to capital gains taxation is expected to increase taxes on investments and mainly affect wealthy Canadians and businesses. Here's what you need to know about the move.
On a night she should have been mourning, a nurse from Quebec's Laurentians region says she was forced to clean up her husband after he died at a hospital in Montreal.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is accusing Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre of welcoming 'the support of conspiracy theorists and extremists,' after the Conservative leader was photographed meeting with protesters, which his office has defended.
"It's a bit of a complicated pattern; we've got a lot going on," said Jennifer Smith of the Meteorological Service of Canada in an interview with CTVNews.ca on Wednesday. "[As is] typical with weather, all of these things are related."
Police tangled with student demonstrators in Texas and California while new encampments sprouted Wednesday at Harvard and other colleges as school leaders sought ways to defuse a growing wave of pro-Palestinian protests.
Members of the Bank of Canada's governing council were split on how long the central bank should wait before it starts cutting interest rates when they met earlier this month.
A North Bay, Ont., lawyer who abandoned 15 clients – many of them child protection cases – has lost his licence to practise law.
A Winnipeg man said a single date gone wrong led to years of criminal harassment, false arrests, stress and depression.
A property tax bill is perplexing a small townhouse community in Fergus, Ont.
When identical twin sisters Kim and Michelle Krezonoski were invited to compete against some of the world’s most elite female runners at last week’s Boston Marathon, they were in disbelief.
The giant stone statues guarding the Lions Gate Bridge have been dressed in custom Vancouver Canucks jerseys as the NHL playoffs get underway.
A local Oilers fan is hoping to see his team cut through the postseason, so he can cut his hair.
A family from Laval, Que. is looking for answers... and their father's body. He died on vacation in Cuba and authorities sent someone else's body back to Canada.
A former educational assistant is calling attention to the rising violence in Alberta's classrooms.
The federal government says its plan to increase taxes on capital gains is aimed at wealthy Canadians to achieve “tax fairness.”
At 6'8" and 350 pounds, there is nothing typical about UBC offensive lineman Giovanni Manu, who was born in Tonga and went to high school in Pitt Meadows.
Kevin the cat has been reunited with his family after enduring a harrowing three-day ordeal while lost at Toronto Pearson International Airport earlier this week.