First Nations children are being taken from families who love them and who they love. They are being taken away from their families, their communities, the places they grew up in, and their cultures, and put into the foster care system. 

There are many reasons this is happening. Firstly, there is a lot more poverty and trauma in First Nations communities because of the historical and ongoing racism, discrimination, and genocide. Secondly, social services on reserves - such as healthcare, education, housing, financial aid, etc - are of much worse quality, and even off-reserve services are not adequate and culturally appropriate. One of the main reasons children are being taken is that child and family service agencies do not have the funding, resources, and capacity to give families the help they truly need. 

Many families cannot pay for the necessities they need to take care of their kids. Or they have a physical or mental illness they can't access treatment for which makes it harder to take care of their child, or their child has an illness they can't access treatment for. It's the job of child and family services agencies to give the families the help they need so that they can give their kids what they need. But without funding and other resources, they cannot do that. 

A lot of First Nations communities are starting to make their own child and family service agencies, run and governed by them. This is good, because it means that they can ensure that the people in these agencies and the way that the agencies are run are non-discriminatory. But there is still a large funding shortage, as well as many other problems. 

Canada must change its behaviour if we are to see progress. In 2016, the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal ruled that Canada has been discriminating against First Nations children. Despite many orders from the Tribunal, Canada has not stopped its discriminatory behaviour. 

The Loving Justice National Plan was made by First Nations social services experts, in equal partnership with First Nations communities throughout Canada. It is based on the best available evidence from the past thirty years. It is aimed at putting structures in place to stop Canada from discriminating against First Nations children and to prevent the reoccurrence of discrimination, which will keep families together. 

—Purpose:—

-Creating enduring protection that ensures that mistreatment, discrimination, and bad outcomes don't happen in the future.

-Creating substantive equality, which means that there will be equal outcomes for First Nations and non-Indigenous children. 

-Protecting and nurturing the holistic wellbeing of children - mind, body, emotions, and spirit. This means that the basic needs of children are met, that they have a good education, and that they have a sense of belonging and attachment, among other things. 

-Ensuring all children are connected to their family, community, culture, and environment. 

-Ensuring that contemporary and historic disadvantage are considered on both an individual and systemic level.

-Ensuring that disabled children can fully participate in their family and culture. 

-Ensuring that children have their views and desires considered in decisions affecting them first and foremost, and that secondly families and communities also get their views and desires considered in decisions affecting them. 

-Creating a system that adapts to changing, community-specific needs to protect the best interests of children.

-Respecting the sovereignty of each community and of First Nations in general. This means that First Nations communities should be the ones defining key terms like like "safety" "wellbeing" "family" "child" "kin" "cultural continuity" "culture-based safety" "inter generation equity" "substantive equality" "wellbeing" and "structural drivers." It also means that communities and the experts they trust should define their needs. It also means that First Nations communities determine their legal mechanisms, instruments, information, resources, and processes in the jurisdiction of services, while having accurate information to do so. 

-Restoring and transmitting the culture, language, spirituality, traditions, and knowledge of each unique culture, and fighting assimilation. 

-Following and implementing the Truth and Reconciliation Committee's Calls to Action and the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls' Calls for Justice. 

—Governance:—

First Nations communities and especially people with experience in the child welfare and foster care system should be the leaders when it comes to the child and family service system both on a local and national level. They should be actively involved in governance and decision making, both on the local and national level. All the people in the system should ultimately be accountable to them, including the Canadian government.

Experts in the field of child and family services, social work, and First Nations communities should advise and provide research and information. But they should not be decision makers, because the community themselves know what outcomes they want for their children and families. 

Each community's child and family service agency needs to be run and lead by the community, according to the laws made by the community. 

There needs to be a National Oversight Council led by rights holders, with representatives from each community chosen by each community. This council will decide what the design of reformed child and family services in Canada would be. They would also manage and control the implementation of the reforms, and continue to manage and control the child and family services system once the reforms have been put in place. They will, most importantly, compel Canada to act in accordance to the needs and wants of First Nations communities when it comes to First Nations child and family services. They will also ensure that Canada properly funds child and family services. They will consult with and report back to communities, ensuring that the Canadian government is accountable to communities and human rights. 

Canada must adequately fund the National Oversight Council as much as it needs, and give it the power and independence it needs to do its job. 

As well as the National Oversight Council, there needs to be a National First Nations Child and Family Services Technical Table. It will be composed of the First Nations Child and Family Caring Society, which is a nonprofit that has fought for the rights of First Nations children for years, as well as experts from each region. The National Technical Table will work with Regional Technical Tables to advise the National Oversight council. They will review all the policies, legislation, regulations, bulletins, and budgets made by the government of Canada and by Indigenous Services Canada (which oversees service provision to Indigenous communities). They will see what the likely outcomes of all the laws, regulations, policies, budgets, etc are and they will make recommendations to the National Oversight Council, which will have the power to change things that are bad. 

There are also other jobs the National Technical Table will do. They will develop, implement, and evaluate an impact assessment tool to see how the system is impacting children and families, and whether children and families are being harmed or helped by the system. They will communicate their findings with communities. They will work with youth and people with experience in care to support their participation in research, consultation, and governance. The Table will work with the National Secretariat and with Regional Technical Tables, and will help the Regional Technical Tables develop the capacity to do their work well. They will also help First Nations communities to set up their own Child and Family Services agencies governed by the communities. 

Canada must fund the National Technical Table however much they need in order to do their job, and will allow the Table to do their job independently and without pressure. 

There will also be a National First Nations Child and Family Secretariat. This position will be comprised of one or more apolitical First Nations-led nonprofits appointed by the National Oversight Council and rights holders. They will be tasked with collecting, analyzing, and disseminating data about outcomes, best practices, and other information. They will educate professionals and the public about best practices and other research. They will use the Measuring to Thrive framework to look at the data they collect. The Measuring to Thrive framework helps us learn whether or not children and families are thriving and whether they will be thriving in the current and planned future systems. The National Secretariat will help groups and communities around the country to convene and to get knowledge. They will support the National Oversight Council and the National Technical Table, and will help Regional Secretariats build capacity to do their jobs. They will help and support youth and people with experience in foster care to participate in research, consultation, and decision making. And they will support the dispute resolution and accountability processes. 

They will also help with and support the Public Funding Review. The Public Funding Review will be done every five years by independent, non-political experts with experience in finance, First Nations, and Child and Family Services in order to ensure that the funding approach and the conduct of Indigenous Services Canada (the government department responsible for Indigenous people) is meeting people's real and holistic needs. 

Canada must fund the National Secretariat as much as it needs, and allow it to function independently and without pressure. 

There also needs to be National Technical Advisory Committees, composed of experts assigned by the National Oversight Council, to provide advice on the design, implementation, and evaluation of child and family services. 

There needs to be Regional Technical Tables, which are composed of First Nations from the region who are experts. They will look at all the legislation, policies, regulations, agreements, budgets, and conducts of the federal government and Indigenous Services Canada to ensure that they are in line with what their region needs and wants. They will review data and research from the Regional Secretariats to make recommendations, getting extra expertise if needed. They will support the participation of youth and people with experience in child welfare in all matters related to child and family services. And they will meet with Indigenous Services Canada. They will report to and be accountable to the communities that they serve. 

The government of Canada must fund the Regional Technical Tables however much they need, and must also help with any capacity building they ask for help with. They must allow the Tables to act independently, without any pressure from the government, financial or otherwise. 

Finally, there should be Regional Secretariats, which will be apolitical independent First Nation-led nonprofits authorized by their communities. They should support the design, delivery, evaluation, and capacity building for prevention services, alternative care, post-majority services, and band representation consistent with the Measuring to Thrive framework. They should also support needs assessments, which find out what the community needs.They should support and coordinate inter jurisdictional service delivery, so that services given by First Nations themselves, by the provinces and territories, and by the federal government all work smoothly together. 

The Regional Secretariats should, like the National Secretariat, be a centre for the community to convene, and a centre point for public and professional knowledge mobilization. They should support the Regional Technical Tables and support the participation of youth and people with experience being in child welfare to participate fully in decision making and research. 

The Canadian government must fund the Regional Secretariats as much as they need to be funded and should also help them build capacity when asked. The government may not pressure the decision making and activities of the Regional Secretariats, through financial means or otherwise, and must respect the independence of the body. 

All of these organizations must be set up and fully operational within six months of the reform plan being approved. Additionally, Canada must work with and listen to First Nations youth in order to set up and fund youth advocacy and empowerment organizations. 

Canada must be legally required to fully cooperate with all of these bodies. This includes providing information to the bodies promptly and without delay. It also includes implementing all of the National Oversight Committee's decisions on current and future child welfare measures, completely and without delay. Canada must get rid of all plans, policies, regulations, decisions, bulletins, processes, etc that were made without the approval of the National Advisory Committee or the National Children's Chiefs Council (the representatives currently leading the negotiations with Canada).