'Scared' and Spied On Under Harper, Why Child Advocate Didn't Give Up
Fresh from victory at the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal, Cindy Blackstock said she persisted with her landmark child welfare case for nine years because, "It's our job as adults to stand up for kids."
That, despite spending nine years feeling "tired and sometimes scared because of what the government was doing to me personally," she told The Tyee.
That treatment, according to Canada's privacy commissioner, included spying on her online activities and "surreptitious monitoring" of her public appearances -- though the commissioner didn't find the latter actions inappropriate.
On Tuesday, the tribunal ruled in favour of Blackstock's First Nations Child and Family Caring Society -- concluding the federal government racially discriminated against 163,000 First Nations children by denying them the same funding for child protection, education and health as Canadian kids.
"It is only because of their race and/or national or ethnic origin that they suffer the adverse impacts," the tribunalconcluded regarding aboriginal children being removed from their families at disproportionate rates, and suffering "service gaps, delays and denials."
The federal government welcomed the ruling and committed to equalizing investments for all children, "not just in terms of money [but] in terms of outcomes," Attorney General Jody Wilson-Raybould told reporters.
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