Canada plans to spend $ 40 billion on Indigenous children, the government of Justin Trudeau announced on Tuesday (December 14th) in a budget review, which is banking on a faster-than-expected economic recovery.
This envelope (27.64 billion euros) could be used to put an end to a dispute over the sums allocated by the federal state to child protection services for indigenous people compared to those offered to non-indigenous children. .
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Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland said half of that would go to compensate children and their families, and the other half would reform the system.
"We know that it is essential to pay our debt to indigenous peoples and that we must ensure that these injustices never happen again,"
said the minister at a press conference.
In 2019, the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal ordered the government to pay compensation of C $ 40,000 to each of the thousands of First Nations children removed from their parents' care and placed in the protection system. childhood after 2006. The country has been shaken since May by revelations about the policy of assimilation of indigenous populations which has prevailed for years.
“Money does not equate to justice, but it indicates that we are on the road to recovery,”
said RoseAnne Archibald, National Chief of the Assembly of First Nations.
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In her budget review, Minister Freeland also downgraded financial assistance in the event of a pandemic, affirming that
"Canada has largely recovered from the economic damage"
inflicted by Covid-19 and that it is
" on the verge of vigorous growth in the coming months ”
. The three million jobs lost at the start of the pandemic have been recovered and economic growth is almost to pre-Covid-19 levels, making Canada the second fastest-recovering G7 country, he said. she clarified. After distributing billions of dollars in financial aid over the past two years, the government is now proposing to target its aid to the sectors hardest hit by the pandemic and to tackle the Omicron variant.
Even before the decisions in parliament, opposition parties have voiced concerns about massive government spending, which is fueling inflation.
The deficit for the current year is expected to drop slightly from April forecast to $ 327.7 billion, while the national debt is expected to reach $ 1,048,700 billion, or 47.6% of GDP.
Growth is also expected to be lower at 4.6%.