Assilimation achieved

Dear editor:
When I was asked by the chair of the Standing Committee for Social Development for the Province of Ontario for the proper pronunciation of Weechi-it-te-win, I replied that We Cheat to Win!
The name was coined from Ojibway in conversations I had had with my late uncle, Alphonse McPherson.
As a member of the Native Child Welfare Planning Committee, I had the honour of going before the standing committee, representing the interests of the Rainy Lake Region Tribal Chiefs.
The Indian political statement of the day at the time, resulting from what became known as the “60s scoop,” was Indian control of Indian child-welfare, followed by the notion that we could look after our children better through “customary care” than having them be in the care of a Children’s Aid Society.
When the standing committee asked me what guarantee could be provided to ensure that our children would, in fact, be looked after under “customary care,” my response was that we could guarantee we could kill our children just as good as what was happening with having them die in care.
Apparently our arguments were heard. In Part X of the Child and Family Services Act, R.S.O., 1990, which deals specifically with Indian and Native Child and Family Services, s.208 defines “customary care” as “the care and supervision of an Indian or native child by a person who is not the child’s parent, according to the custom of the child’s band or native community.”
In my years of research, I have never come across any information anywhere that indicates a “designated Children’s Aid Society” is in accordance with “the custom of the child’s band or native community.”
Instead, Part X of the Act allows a band or native community to be exempted from application of the Act in favour of “customary care.”
With the recent “Historic child-welfare deal” signed between Kenora-Rainy River Child and Family Services and Weechi-it-te-win Family Services, I believe Duncan Campbell Scott would be duly impressed to see what aggressive assimilation finally has achieved in such a short period of time—the oppressed have become the oppressors.
(Signed),
Dennis McPherson,
B.A., H.B.S.W., LL.B.,
H.B.A., LL.M., J.D.
Thunder Bay, Ont.