—Funding:—

As it stands today, child and family service agencies are heavily underfunded, which means that they cannot help families with what they actually need and instead are pushed towards tearing families apart. There are many other problems with funding, with Indigenous Services Canada denying many requests without reason and creating long delays. The baseline funding determined by the federal government in 2018 doesn't account for the actual needs of communities, agencies, and children, and it has not improved since then. Indigenous Services Canada's behaviour makes it so the current system of claims-based funding is not adequate or appropriate. Children and families with complex needs, especially, do not have the funding needed to actually help them and keep their families together. 

The Reformed Funding Approach was made in partnership with the Institute for Fiscal Studies and Democracy to ensure that First Nations get the funding they need to keep families together. It will be implemented, and then it will be assessed for impact and how it can be improved. Once the assessment is done, we will know how to make an even better funding system and thus will develop and implement the Fully Reformed Funding Approach. The Fully Reformed Funding Approach must be an improvement to the Reformed Funding Approach. Canada cannot do anything that leads to less funding (accounting for inflation) or a worse funding structure than the Reformed Funding Approach.

The Reformed Funding Approach must be guaranteed and must not be dependant on which party is in power. It must only be replaced by the Fully Reformed Funding Approach, under the authority of the National Oversight Council and the communities said Council is accountable to. The Reformed Funding Approach must be statutory, as must be the Fully Reformed Funding Approach. And Canada must not be allowed to use any other legislation to try to justify not adhering to either funding approach. The same goes for the Fully Reformed Funding Approach. It must be statutory and not dependent on which government is in power, and Canada cannot do anything to justify not adhering to it. 

The Reformed Funding Approach (and its successor) must be interpreted and implemented in adherence to the Canadian Human Rights Act and UN human rights declarations. It must ensure that all child and family service agencies are fully funded as much as they need to be in order to holistically safeguard the multifaceted needs of every child. It must also ensure that all funding is predictable and timely, leaving no agency to wait for funding. There must be long term funding guarantees all communities can depend on. 

Canada must not be allowed to reallocate funding from other services, such as housing, to increase funding for Child and Family Services, either directly or indirectly. The funds need to be placed in a Special Purpose Allotment so that they cannot be used for other purposes. 

There will be baseline funding for each agency serving First Nations communities. The baseline funding will be however much the community and agency asks for, and will go towards the cost of providing services. It will need to be adequate to provide all the services children need, especially prevention services that keep them with their families. Along with the baseline funding, there will be top up funding that will also be adequate and what the agency and community asks for. It will go towards things like information technology, data and results collection, poverty funds, capacity development, emergency funds, capital maintenance, additional money for prevention services, resources and funding to account for communities that are remote, insurance, cultural programs, and cultural sensitivity training. On top of that, there needs to be emergency funds for situations such as natural disasters or other emergencies. And there needs to be additional funding for procuring, building, and maintaining physical infrastructure, representative services for individuals, families, and communities, post majority services including family reunification, the development of agencies controlled by First Nations, planning funds, and funds for special circumstances. 

All of this funding will be block funding. That means that there won't be funding for each specific aspect, such as a separate fund for prevention services and a separate fund for protection services, or a separate fund for information technology and and a separate fund for capital maintenance within the top up funding. This will give agencies the flexibility they need to spend their money on whatever their actual needs are. One agency could need more money for one aspect of their work versus another, while another agency has different needs. If any funding request is not granted within thirty days, the National Oversight Council needs to get involved, and there must be interim funding for the agency's request while the matter is being resolved. If Indigenous Services Canada does deny a request, which they really shouldn't do, then they will need to give clear reasons as to why and interim funding must be given while the matter is resolved in the Dispute Resolution Mechanism. 

A lot of First Nations haven't yet developed a child and family service agency that runs under their guidance and their laws. They need to be given the resources, support, and funding in order to do so. They need to plan and create the agency, but they also need the time, support, and funding to build capacity so that they can provide the necessary services to keep families together and create the best outcomes for children. They need the necessary support to build a culturally sensitive and culturally educated workforce. All the funding and support must come from an evidence-informed model where the communities themselves get to determine the support and resources they get. 

There needs to be enough funding to provide good post-majority supports for young adults as well. Post-majority supports help young adults who aged out of the foster care system, and other young adults who had contact with child and family services as children, to get the support, resources, care, and education they need in order to build a good life for themselves. One of the most important post majority supports is family reunification for young adults who have been taken from their family. Eventually, the National Oversight Council will develop an evidence-based plan to deliver post-majority supports in a way that ensures equal outcomes for First Nations youth compared to non-Indigenous youth, and the Public Funding Review done every five years will also guide post-majority supports. In the meantime though, funding will be what agencies ask for. 

When it comes to capital funding, aka funding for physical buildings and vehicles and stuff needed to provide services, there needs to be a plan to improve the system. The plan will be developed based on First Nations data, by First Nations capital and service experts, and approved by the National Oversight Council and the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal. The plan needs to be evidence-based, culturally appropriate, creating equal outcomes, accounting for each community's distinct needs and circumstances, and in line with the Loving Justice National Plan. 

Both before and after the capital funding plan, Canada must meet all capital funding requests fast and without gaps, delays, or denials. First Nations and child and family service agencies need to be believed and listened to when they report their needs, and those reported needs must be met. If any capital funding takes longer than 30 days to be delivered, the National Oversight Council and National Technical Table needs to get involved. If Canada does deny a request, they need to provide clear reasons for doing so and that denial will go to the Dispute Resolution Mechanism. If a project is in the Dispute Resolution Mechanism, Canada must provide interim funding so services can continue being delivered. 

Canada must fund an independent First Nations-led Family Wellbeing Research Fund. This fund will do research into the structural drivers that cause child and family service contact, such as poverty. They will find long term reforms that address these structural drivers. They will check the quality of services and whether the orders of the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal are being followed. This research fund will allow for culturally-grounded research and solutions. 

Funding needs to increase in accordance with inflation and population. Inflation must be calculated based on the Consumer Price Index, and must on top of that upwardly adjust for local inflation. Indigenous Services Canada's current system for determining population is terrible, and the National Oversight Council, National Technical Table, and the groups suing Canada must create a better census system in three years, which is an endeavour Canada must support and listen to. 

There needs to be flexibility for First Nations and service providers to get extra funding on top of the Reformed Funding Approach if that's what they need. 

Canada must fund and implement the transition to the Reformed Funding Approach. And after the Fully Reformed Funding Approach is in place, Canada must continue funding representative services at actual cost for 180 days. After the 180 days, representative services will be funded according to the Fully Reformed Finding Approach.

There is something that is inadequate about the Loving Justice Plan, which the makers of the Plan clearly highlight. The Plan does not incorporate funding for First Nations children and families living off reserve. Any funding approach must ensure that First Nations groups can themselves give all the same services to their children and families off reserve as what their on reserve people get. There also needs to be enough funding so that every child and family recognized by their community gets the same services, regardless of whether or not they qualify under the Indian Act, because the Indian Act leaves a lot of people out who are recognized by their communities. 

—Accountability:—

Canada, First Nations, and child and family service providers all need to be transparent and accountable to the communities. Said communities should be the ultimate authority on decisions of policy and funding regarding child and family services. All decisions made need to be clearly communicated to everyone involved. Indigenous Services Canada especially should have accountability to fund things properly and in a timely way and to behave in a way that is fair to First Nations communities. 

The Canadian Prime Minister must collaborate with First Nations to create and publish a public yearly report on Canada's compliance with the First Nations child and family services reform plan. This report will include a review on funding methods and amounts. The National Oversight Council will comment on the report, and their comments will be publicly published with the report. The reporting of outcomes should involve the voices, opinions, experiences, and desires of children, youth, and families, especially those affected by child and family services.

Canada must also publicly published the fact that their current child and family services system discriminates against First Nations. They must publicly published the cause of the discrimination, steps taken to remedy it, and, most importantly, the outcome of those steps. This must be done in a non-misleading way. 

Before changing the Reformed Child and Family Services system in any way, the National Technical Table and National Oversight Council must report on the impact on children and youth. No changes can be made without the approval of the National Oversight Council. 

The National Oversight Council, National Technical Table, Regional Technical Tables, elders, youth, and First Nations people with experience in foster care will work together to make a Child and Youth Impact Assessment Tool. This tool will insure that the child and family services system is helping children and youth rather than harming them, and is meeting their needs. 

A lot of agencies rely on the province or territory they're in for some aspects of service delivery. There needs to be full transparency on services provided by provinces and territories, and on the terms, funding, and intended outcomes of said services. Canada needs to, in partnership with First Nations, ensure that all agreements with provinces and territories are meeting the principles and goals of child and family services reform. First Nations need to be given all the funding and support needed to fully participate in this process. 

Canada must give all the relevant data to National and Regional Secretariats and Technical Tables, within ten days of being asked, calibrated to the Measuring to Thrive framework. 

The Canadian Human Rights Tribunal must maintain its oversight and jurisdiction until reform is fully complied with and discrimination is demonstrably ended. In order for the Tribunal to cease its jurisdiction over Child and Family Services the following must happen: Canada must fully implement the Reformed Funding Approach. The Expert Advisory Committee and National Oversight Council must work with the parties suing Canada to determine whether discrimination has permanently stopped. Under the guidance of communities, Canada must amend agreements with provinces and territories to align with the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal's orders. And there needs to be good measures to detect and effectively stop any discrimination that happens in the future.