When I went to work up North, I really thought I could make a DIFFERENCE but it became soon apparent that I was hitting upon walls I had not expected. Over and over, I was told I did not have judgment, not enough experience of the North and that I just didn’t understand. I was always left alone with my questions. It wasn't until I read Catherine Richardson's book that I fully understood what I had seen, heard and felt.
So it became apparent that I could not, just sit there and watch it happen. Thereby, my walk and my purpose evolved as I made plans to go across Canada, not only to inform but also to raise funds for safehouses so that the children can stay safe and remain in their communities.
But more often, it was apparent that if I felt walls, mine was in the course of my work, but the women of the Nunavik communities were up against more walls than I ever could be: walls of incomprehension, walls with due process of law, walls of powerlessness, walls of endurance and yearning for fairness and dignity through law, etc,. Policies and practices reflect longstanding and deeply embedded mother-blaming and father absenting ideologies that shape child protection systems.
Contributing to the quality of life of children
For example, at one point I tried to have a high chair for a special child who had no skeletal muscle tonus, typically like a rag doll. Skeletal muscle tone is responsible for maintaining posture. This child of two years old would gag whenever she was fed in a horizontal position. When the chair arrived, she could not use it, the specifications which were not respected preventing her to be seated in it having outgrown the measurements. I was disappointed because I felt she would have to wait that much longer when we re-ordered. But when I sent in a request form, I was told there would be no other chair. Not only were her days counted, but the risk of her gagging every time she was fed got higher. From a cost effective consideration, it might be something that is acceptable but from my point of view, we were not contributing to the quality of life of this child. Had I been in the South, I would probably have gone to see a Lions or Rotary Club and requested a new chair but social clubs are inexistent in the North. It would not be the last time I felt cost effective considerations spoke louder than the welfare of the children.Understand the context of people’s lives and support change
It was so hard to see what I was doing there. Although there were many times when I felt we were justified in removing children, countless times children were removed on obscure notions of law, unquestionably misunderstood by yours truly and even more so by the Inuit population. What really bothered me was the fact that there was seldom any attempt to understand the context of the people’s lives and how we could support change for the better rather than “reacting by the book”. When I discussed it with my supervisor, I was told there was no time for that in my schedule and to give it away.Voices unheard and their dignity trampled
The human rights of children and mothers were baffled, their voices unheard and their dignity trampled to the ground as their children were moved from place to place with their clothes in a garbage bag. I counted from 19 times to 56 times. Their vulnerability, ascertained, we then expected these children to do our bidding although their life outcomes in key domains like health, education and sometimes culture were being changed forever. Their lives were altered but the cost of the decisions that were made would prove to be costlier than anything we could have predicted. This is my heartfelt opinion.Failing the children and their mothers
We are failing these children. Why else is there no urgency around the matters that concern them: poverty, overcrowding, social conditions that hinder the developmental outcomes all Canadian children should enjoy? Are we not aware that these children grow up and costs rise as they become more often involved in youth criminal justice, as they face more health problems, experiencing higher rates of malnutrition, drug and alcohol abuse, suicides?The numerous disruptions of placements
There is a disparity in services. Our services work in entangled ways: we work backward and only threaten the future of these children through our insensitivity. Anyone who endures the numerous disruptions of placements we put them through may feel adrift - disoriented and unsure of how to get along in the world. Mary Ellen Turpel-Lafond, BC representative, an advocate of children in the welfare system made six recommendations in her October 2015 report, including a call for the ministry to immediately address the “persistent professional indifference” of police, social workers, and educators towards aboriginal youth. If it changes in the South, it follows it will change in the North.Petition to empower the mothers and to reduce placements of the children
Like all that matters, we have to make the connections with what we can all do to help. The petition I carry is to be given to PM Justin Trudeau in the hopes of restoring dignity but also their rights to stable families and harmonious communities by taking into consideration the Inuit way of raising children.No Child Should Take the Long Way Home
Children, mothers, and communities are the object of this project No Child Should Take the Long Way Home. After all, every child is born with the right to have a better chance at a life free from abuse and violence.
But the children are very vulnerable when they are removed from their birth families. When they are removed not only from their families but from their community, children lose out on being raised by their own families, in their own communities. As a result, there are increased numbers of Inuit children in child and foster care.
No Child Should Take the Long Way Home is a grassroots initiative to help children in need of loving care, of a protective and stable environment to meet their basic needs for protection, shelter, and education in a safe house in their own community.
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