“We stole her back too” - Acts of resistance and restoration when traditional governance and authority of child and family matters is reclaimed by the grandmothers of a First Nation community

Abstract

Canada's 2015 Truth and Reconciliation Commission's findings concerning child welfare highlighted impacts resulting in Indigenous people's dispossession, trauma, separation, and relational upheavals through forced removals and lasting harm to children, families and communities. Canadian Provincial government legislation over child welfare authority dominates and these outcomes continue today through child apprehensions. In 2020 the Canadian Federal Government enacted Bill C-92 respecting First Nations, Inuit and Métis children, youth and families; a legal framework intended to reduce the gross over-representation of Indigenous children in care. It affirms the inherent jurisdictional authority of Indigenous communities over their child and family matters. In 2024 following some Provincial Governments' legal challenges, the Supreme Court of Canada unanimously confirmed C-92 is constitutional in its entirety.

This article chronicles the efforts of a team of Indigenous Dene, provincially-delegated workers with extensive experience working within provincial child and family legislative frameworks. Within 15-months 47 children taken by Alberta Children's Services from their rural community were returned and re-connected to their families, kin and culture. Culturally-based practices such as inclusion of ceremonial practices, using circle processes to conduct meetings and problem solve and respecting the traditional authority of matriarchs within the Indigenous Dene kinship system were key strategies in resisting and challenging the status quo of provincial child welfare authorities. These actions can encourage other communities to transform current child welfare approaches by restoring and reclaiming their own laws and traditional practices which offer alternative, humane and culturally-connected ways to protect children, support healing and rebuild communities.