Common use of NATURE OF THE ACTION Clause in Contracts

NATURE OF THE ACTION. 3. For decades, the Crown has systematically discriminated against First Nations children on the grounds of race and national or ethnic origin. The discrimination has taken two forms. 4. First, the Crown has knowingly underfunded child and family services for First Nations children living on Reserve and in the Yukon. This underfunding has prevented child welfare service agencies from providing adequate Prevention Services to First Nations children. The underfunding persists despite the heightened need for such services on Reserve due to the inter-generational trauma inflicted on First Nations peoples by the legacy of the Residential Schools and the Sixties Scoop, and despite numerous calls to action by several official, independent fact-finders. The Crown has known about the severe inadequacies of its funding formulas, policies, and practices for years, but has not adequately addressed them. 5. At the same time that the Crown has underfunded Prevention Services to First Nations children living on Reserve and in the Yukon, it has fully funded the costs of care for First Nations children who are removed from their homes and placed into out- of-home care. This practice has created an incentive on the part of First Nations child welfare service agencies to remove First Nations children living on Reserve and in the Yukon from their homes and place them in out-of-home care. Because of these funding formulas, policies, and practices, a child on Reserve must often be removed from their home in order to receive public services that are available to children off Reserve. 6. The removal of a child from their home causes severe and, in some cases, permanent trauma. It is therefore only used as a last resort for children who do not live on a Reserve. Because of the underfunding of Prevention Services and the full funding of out-of-home care, however, First Nations children on Reserve and in the Yukon have been removed from their homes as a first resort, and not as a last resort. The funding incentive to remove First Nations children from their homes accounts for the staggering number of First Nations children in state care. There are approximately three times the numbers of First Nations children in state care now than there were in Residential Schools at their apex in the 1940s. 7. The incentivized removal of First Nations children from their homes has caused traumatic and enduring consequences to First Nations children. Many of these children already suffer the effects of trauma inflicted by the Crown on their parents, grandparents and ancestors by the Residential Schools and Sixties Scoop. This action seeks individual compensation for on Reserve First Nations children who were victims of this systemic discrimination.