FORT HOPE — One of the most welcome components of the Ontario Final Agreement (OFA) to reform child welfare services on reserves is the remoteness quotient, leaders of northern First Nations say.
The remoteness quotient is the factor by which child and family services funding is increased to account for extra costs incurred by remote First Nations such as Eabametoong, whose Fort Hope reserve is some 370 kilometres north of Thunder Bay and accessible only by air during most of the year.
“We’re going to need that part of the agreement because, right off the bat, we’re disadvantaged in anything that we do in the community because of the remoteness factor,” Chief Solomon Atlookan told Newswatch.
He was speaking shortly after Monday’s decision by the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal to approve the OFA.
The OFA’s “remoteness quotient adjustment factor” adjusts funding to some First Nations to account for the increased costs of delivering services there.
Funding is increased under the formula according to how remote a community is deemed to be.
Most First Nations in Ontario — especially NAN communities, most of which not road-accessible — are expected to benefit from the framework.
Cat Lake Chief Russell Wesley said the remoteness quotient may be the most important part of the agreement for First Nations like his, which is accessible only by air or winter ice road.
“We’d always pursued it, so that we have equitable funding,” he said. “Because by the time we pay for transportation and fuel costs, we have a lot less in program funding to spend on programming.”
Last week at the NAN Chiefs Assembly in Toronto, lawyer Julian Falconer told chiefs the remoteness quotient adjustments to funding “are real and consequential” and will more than double funding for some First Nations.
A joint statement issued Monday by NAN and the Chiefs of Ontario said the tribunal’s ruling “confirms that the Ontario Final Agreement is sufficient to achieve the objectives of its previous orders to address and eliminate systemic racial discrimination in First Nations Child and Family Services in Ontario.”
“At the heart of the tribunal’s decision,” the joint statement said, “is the principle of substantive equality, and the ruling affirms the inherent right of First Nations to care for their own children and to design services grounded in their laws, traditions and priorities.”
NAN Grand Chief Alvin Fiddler is quoted in the joint statement as saying the tribunal’s decision “acknowledged that the remoteness quotient is an important, groundbreaking, innovative and valuable tool.”
The joint statement says approval of the OFA “signals the end of systemic racial discrimination” in child welfare and “and the beginning of a new era defined by First Nations jurisdiction, equity and self-determination.”
NAN and the Chiefs of Ontario have said implementation of the agreement will begin in earnest once the 30-day appeal period for Monday’s decision has passed.
