Province meets Indigenous leaders on child-welfare funding

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This article was published 20/02/2019 (1885 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

After taking heat for unilaterally changing the funding model for child welfare, the Pallister government says it will seek more input from Indigenous groups, who are still demanding basic details on the imminent reform.

“We’ve agreed to work collaboratively, moving forward,” Families Minister Heather Stefanson told reporters after a Thursday meeting held with urging from the First Nations chiefs for both northern and southern Manitoba, as well as the Manitoba Metis Federation.

Stefanson announced last week that Manitoba would be moving to a block-funding model for all child and family services (CFS) agencies. That means it would provide a baseline of funding that isn’t pegged to the number of cases the agency handles.

Last week’s news stunned Indigenous people who help run the CFS system, saying they hadn’t been told about the change.

Agencies who undertook a block-funding pilot project say Stefanson’s department hadn’t actually sought feedback on how it went, with at least two describing the pilot as much worse than the existing system. The department has said it monitored funding allocations.

“There’s major changes coming forward, and we definitely want to have feedback from the Indigenous community on that, and the Indigenous leaders,” Stefanson said Thursday.

Ten days after announcing the reform, Stefanson had no details on how the $435 million set to kick in five weeks from now will be divided among Manitoba’s four CFS authorities.

That didn’t impress MMF President David Chartrand, though Stefanson assured him her staff would hold a more in-depth chat in roughly two weeks. “She was open; I’ll give her that,” he said.

For Chartrand, a key question is whether the block funding means CFS agencies will have full flexibility over their budgets, or if it’s only the ability to reallocate unused foster-care payments.

“At the end of the day, you can make things worse and not better,” he said.

The Assembly of Manitoba Chiefs has long pushed for First Nations to take full autonomy over CFS, arguing a bill it has drafted would fully devolve the system.

Ottawa has pledged to overhaul the federal laws around CFS with the goal of giving more autonomy to Indigenous groups. That legislation has been delayed amid criticism from First Nations groups, who claim they’d need provincial consent to take over CFS under the bill’s current draft.

Unlike most provinces, Manitoba has a semi-devolved child-welfare system that has First Nations and Métis leaders run their own authorities, but following provincial laws and a mix of federal and provincial budgets.

A fourth agency is for non-Indigenous people, who make up roughly 13 per cent of CFS cases in the province.

Thursday’s meeting appears to be the first the Pallister government has had, since taking office in 2016, with the Indigenous leadership council. Provincial CFS laws designate that as the formal consultation body, though without stating when they must be spoken with.

University of Manitoba economics professor John Loxley has helped CFS agencies outline their budgets and costing.

He said moving toward allocations in three-year periods will provide agencies with more stability, but he isn’t sure how much flexibility the new funding model prescribes, and whether it will represent a cut to their budgets.

“It’s hard to know what to make of the new change. It’s, in principle, probably a good thing,” he said. “It could be just an exercise in cost-cutting; that’s the danger.”

dylan.robertson@freepress.mb.ca