Legislative reform to reduce Indigenous women’s manufactured vulnerability

Recommendation 6: End the apprehension of Indigenous children and prohibit the placement of Indigenous children into non-Indigenous foster and adoptive families.

Guaranteed public services

Recommendation 30: Ensure Indigenous mothers are able to maintain an adequate standard of living by raising income assistance and disability rates, ensuring safe and affordable housing, and guaranteeing food and transit allowances. Provide grandparents raising grandchildren, and all kinship care providers, with livable incomes and benefits. Provide income, housing, food, transit and all additional supports to youth transitioning out of government care until the age of 25 years old.

Guaranteed public services

Recommendation 31: Guarantee a free and culturally appropriate child care system for all Indigenous families, including families awaiting kinship care placements, that accommodates children of all needs and abilities and is independent from child welfare services.

Guaranteed public services

Recommendation 33: Provide a free transit pass for children ages 0-18 years old, all youth transitioning out of government care till age 25 years old, and for all adults on pensions, income assistance, and disability assistance.

Recommendations to end Indigenous women’s displacement from land

On reserve

Recommendation 43: End the apprehension of Indigenous children due to poverty or Eurocentric ideas of neglect that stem from a legacy of colonization.

Recommendations to guarantee economic security for Indigenous women in the DTES

Provincial income assistance

Recommendation 68: Amend income and disability benefits assessments so that only relationships that display significant financial dependence or interdependence are relevant for the purposes of eligibility, and remove financial interdependence by default on the basis that a person indicates parental role for a child unless a spousal relationship can be established.

Recommendations to guarantee economic security for Indigenous women in the DTES

Provincial income assistance

Recommendation 69: No reduction of welfare for families in cases of child apprehension, so that income support and housing is maintained while mothers are in the process of getting their children back.

Recommendations to guarantee economic security for Indigenous women in the DTES

Provincial income assistance

Recommendation 71: Provide income supports to youth transitioning out of government care until the age of 25 years old, regardless of whether or not they are employed or in school.

Recommendations to guarantee economic security for Indigenous women in the DTES

Provincial income assistance

Recommendation 72: Remove the age cap and the two-year eligibility requirement for income assistance for the Tuition Waiver Program for youth aging out of care.

Recommendations to guarantee economic security for Indigenous women in the DTES

Universal public services

Recommendation 83: Guarantee a free and culturally appropriate child care system for all Indigenous families, including families awaiting kinship care placements. Child care must accommodates families’ diverse schedules, be available to children of all needs and abilities, and must be independent from child welfare services.