The last week there's been a lot of discussion in the communities building up to the "Emergency Conference" the government called on FN child services in Canada.
The phrase "Children as Commonities" came up several times with me so I looked further into it, which was good because it started to make an appearance in the news and on twitter more often.
The Child Services at the moment, while under funded, is still built on the idea that the more kids you have in Foster Care the more money your province gets for them. This is doubled by the more kids you have in Foster Care the more your Child Services department gets.
Ie. if steves department apprehends six kids while Elaine's department apprehends four, then Steves department is going to get 60% of the budget for the province.
Think about that for a second.
If you take more kids from their parents your department makes more money.
That's a major incentive for people to look around their morals and ethics and look for any reasons to take kids.
It's also a major issue in returning kids; Why would someone help children get out of the Foster System if it meant they themselves would miss out on a raise?