N.L. minister deflects call for inquiry into treatment of Labrador's Indigenous children

Responding to an Innu leader's call for an inquiry into the treatment of Indigenous children, Newfoundland and Labrador's minister for children's services says she doesn't know if an inquiry would be the best use of tax dollars.

"When it comes to the call for an inquiry, all Canadian provinces are all working together to improve child welfare services for Indigenous people, but the actual determination if there should be an inquiry is not for me to make," said Sherry Gambin-Walsh, minister of Children, Seniors and Social Development.

When asked if she personally supports the idea of an inquiry, Gambin-Walsh said it's something she would have to study before expressing an opinion.

"I would really have to sit down and evaluate this in more detail. I really can't answer the question if I feel that the best use of government resources right now would be an inquiry," she said.

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Last month, Innu leader Simeon Tshakapesh lost his son to suicide after Thunderheart Tshakapesh received addiction treatment services in central Newfoundland.

'System has failed our youth'

Now Tshakapesh says Gambin-Walsh's department isn't doing enough to help Labrador's Indigenous people.

"The system has failed our youth and I certainly don't want to see parents go through what we have gone through," he said.

Tshakapesh also questions the practice of sending Indigenous children away from home for services. He says non-Indigenous families are using Indigenous foster children to make money.

The care that our foster families are offering to children that are in need is absolutely exemplary.- Sherry Gambin-Walsh

"Why are they using Innu kids for revenue? Our kids are not revenue. They are not mortgage payments as people call them in Goose Bay. Our youth have been called mortgage payments and that's got to end," he said.

Gambin-Walsh questioned if any foster parents see Indigenous children as "mortgage payments."

"I've never heard that other than hearing it from Simeon. The care that our foster families are offering to children that are in need is absolutely exemplary," she said

Earlier this year, CBC News reported on the economic impact of Indigenous foster children on Northern Peninsula communities.

The Newfoundland and Labrador government says more than 30 per cent of the children in foster care in the province — that's 310 as of late 2016 — are from Labrador, even though the region has only six per cent of the province's population.

Aboriginal children are vastly over-represented in the child welfare system. About one-third of the children removed from their parents wind up in foster care outside of Labrador, many hundreds of kilometres away, in non-Indigenous communities.

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In many cases, the Labrador children are concentrated in the neighbouring communities of Roddickton and Englee, home to roughly 2,000 people.

As of December, according to the provincial government, there were 45 foster homes in the area, caring for 55 children.

"It certainly helps the economy and certainly helps people that some income comes from this to help them survive and live in difficult times," said Englee Mayor Rudy Porter at the time.