Human Rights Litigation: First Nations Child and Family Caring Society of Canada

Successfully represented the Caring Society in its complaint under the Canadian Human Rights Act finding that the federal government was discriminating against 165,000 First Nations children living on-reserve by failing to provide child and family services that respect First Nations’ historical, geographical and cultural needs and circumstances and by failing to implement the full meaning and scope of Jordan’s Principle (2016 CHRT 2). 

Following the Tribunal’s decision on the merits, successfully obtained non-compliance orders to secure immediate relief related to child and family services on-reserve (2016 CHRT 10, 2016 CHRT 16, 2018 CHRT 4) and the full implementation of Jordan’s Principle (2017 CHRT 14, 2017 CHRT 35, 2019 CHRT 7, 2020 CHRT 20, 2020 CHRT 36). 

Litigation is ongoing before the Federal Court to defend the Tribunal’s orders requiring the federal government to pay $40,000 in compensation to each First Nations child who was the victims of its discrimination, as well as their parents (2019 CHRT 39 and 2021 CHRT 7).