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How a young mother and former foster kid is fighting the UCP (and winning)
65 Plays4 years ago
The UCP are trying to snatch away financial, social and education benefits from 2100 former foster kids. It's incredibly cruel and totally needless and A.C. and her lawyer Avnish Nanda have taken the government to court and won to keep these benefits – for now. We talk about this case with Nanda and Jenn Prosser an organizer and campaigner who grew up in foster care and kinship care during the aftermath of Klein's cuts.
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Transcript
UCP Cuts Benefits for Aging Out Youth
00:00:15
Speaker
Friends and enemies, welcome to The Progress Report. I am your host, Duncan Kinney, and I'm recording today here in Amiscuiti with Skygan, otherwise known as Edmonton, Alberta. And today, we're talking about a case that demonstrates the casual streak of cruelty that runs through Alberta's United Conservative Party government. Back in November, the government announced changes that would cut off people from financial, healthcare, education, and other benefits for people who are aging out of the child intervention system at 22 years of age rather than at 24.
00:00:46
Speaker
And when we're talking about people aging out of the child intervention system, what we're talking about is like foster kids who are now adults and we're now trying to build an independent life for themselves and do things like go to university. So the government was essentially trying to take all that away from people who are trying to start their lives.
00:01:04
Speaker
The government said that this change would, quote, better meet the goal of establishing natural supports for the participants that would last beyond their involvement in government care, unquote. Obviously, that's just horseshit, and it's probably just because it's a line item on a budget.
Legal Challenge: Avanish Nanda's Fight
00:01:18
Speaker
But to go over this case that we're talking about, as well as the kind of wider issue, we've got two people on the line that I'm very lucky to have. The first up is Avanish Nanda. Avanish Nanda is a constitutional lawyer based in Edmonton, and he's calling in today from his home recording studio here in Edmonton. Avanish, how are you doing? Good. Thank you so much for having me on.
00:01:41
Speaker
Avneesh is working with a client, Pro Bono, to challenge the government on this case. He's actually won a couple of things already and the case is currently ongoing. Avneesh, welcome back to the pod. I think this is your second time.
Personal Perspectives: Jen Prosser's Story
00:01:57
Speaker
Yeah, I'm pretty excited to be on and I appreciate you having me for this important issue.
00:02:03
Speaker
Yeah, I think you were like our second guest that you were like our second episode. You, me and Bashir, I think we were going after Kerry Deod or something for being a racist. Good times. And yeah, and also joining us on the line is Jen Prosser from Lethbridge. Jen is with Lethbridge Public Interest Research Group. She is a well-respected political organizer who has worked in parliament as political staff and on campaigns across Canada. Jen grew up in foster care and kinship care during the aftermath of the Klein cuts. Jen, welcome to the pod.
Child Intervention System Overview
00:02:34
Speaker
Thank you so much. I'm very excited to be here with you in Avnish. Okay. So let's, let's set the context. Let's like understand what it is we're talking about. Like I am not very familiar with the, you know, the child intervention system. I'm making scare quotes around that here in the studio. When we're talking about the child intervention system, what exactly are we talking about? The child apprehension or the welfare system in Alberta is this
00:03:02
Speaker
large cumbersome process in which the government apprehends children from families and either places them with foster parents or group homes or with others to care for them and to raise them. In addition, the guardianship of these individuals are taken away from their parents and given to them to others.
00:03:28
Speaker
That's kind of a brief, concise description of the system, which is, again, quite complicated, fraught with issues, and is a significant part of what provincial resources are devoted to, not as much as is required, I think, to kind of fully create a fair and equitable system. Yeah, and I think that
00:03:57
Speaker
that basically describes how the systems work across Canada. I mean, one of the kind of key issues that I think has been demonstrated when we look at or when the discussion is had about how, you know, child intervention or family intervention works is that every province has a different system. And those systems don't particularly coordinate very well with the federal jurisdiction
00:04:24
Speaker
in certain parts of those provinces or the federal kind of rules around different, I guess, like legal precedents and whatnot. And it seems to be that there's a lot of conflict around that kind of stuff. So one of the challenges when having this discussion is like, we can talk about what this intervention system looks like in Alberta and how it's affected families in Alberta. But we also have to recognize that like,
Challenges Faced by Social Workers
00:04:54
Speaker
It's not the same across provinces, which causes other issues. So when we're talking about intervention and placing children in new homes, what that looks like depends on the number, like if there are family members available to do kinship care. So from my experience, the legal term is apprehended.
00:05:22
Speaker
But the process is very lengthy. So typically, social workers, caseworkers will be assigned to you. Sometimes if you're lucky, if you're a family that's lucky, you'll have one caseworker that's assigned to you for a long time. But as we know, the social workers are extremely overburdened. So burnout is an incredible issue. So in my experience,
00:05:51
Speaker
Growing up, when I was living with my mom and stepdad, we had three different caseworkers over a few years assessing our living situation in our environment.
Kinship Care and Relocation Issues
00:06:05
Speaker
And then I, to be honest, I think we had maybe another two or three following that as I moved around in different places. So you do,
00:06:19
Speaker
get the chance to develop relationships, but home visits are what a lot of social workers do to assess living situations and to assess where things are at. They will speak to the kids, to the parents or the parental figures or the guardians.
00:06:42
Speaker
They might talk to neighbors as well, which can be really challenging for that family and especially in smaller communities. It doesn't take long for the whole neighborhood to know what's going on. Um, and then in my situation, we had about a year of assessments and, um, in that time, other resources were offered and available to a limited amount. So there is like respite care.
00:07:11
Speaker
that parents who are being assessed can access as well. And those that respite care can look like stays in foster care. And Jamie, I have a question for you. Like, and again, if you're comfortable about this, definitely let me know. Are you of indigenous ancestry? Like, was that part- No. Okay. No. Yeah. So I'm like kind of an outlier when it comes to the system.
00:07:40
Speaker
Yeah, and just about kinship care and just at least some of my clients, what they experienced from indigenous backgrounds and where they had to travel to and where sometimes their parents moved to Alberta, but their relations are in other provinces. Yeah. It's tough. Yeah, so I worked for Nicky Ashton in Ottawa, and so we would
00:08:07
Speaker
like help with casework around like child intervention on reserve. And it was really difficult because a lot of people's families weren't in their community. They would be somewhere else or they'd be in like settler communities.
00:08:24
Speaker
Yeah, so that was like, it's a huge challenge to keep people together or they'd like be in Winnipeg and then they'd be moved up north to be with family up north. But I mean, if you're a kid who lived in Winnipeg your whole life and then you're being moved up to the far north, like that's super traumatic.
00:08:45
Speaker
So Jen and Avnish, when we're talking about the child
Systemic Issues: Poverty and Colonial Legacy
00:08:48
Speaker
intervention system here, I mean, I don't think the folks who are in the system use that term. It's a pretty bureaucratic term. So this is a pretty complex system. Jen, why don't you kind of like explain what the terms like actually mean? So usually, folks, especially like kids will use more kind of common language. So
00:09:10
Speaker
It depends on where they're placed. So if they're placed in foster care, they'll like say like, I live in a foster home or these are my foster parents. If they're placed in a group home, they'll call it a group home or they may refer to the name of the home. So like if they're placed at woods, they'll say like, oh, I live at woods or I live, you know, whatever. And if they're placed in kinship care, typically that's a much less formal institutional arrangement. And so, um,
00:09:38
Speaker
you wouldn't necessarily refer to it as kinship care. You would more refer to it with your like familial relationship. So like, Oh, I live with my auntie or my grandma or whatever. Okay. So, so why do people end up in this system? I mean, I realize every situation is different, but like, what, what can you tell us about that? I think it varies. I mean, I think there are the worst case scenarios where there's violence and sexual violence and like abuse and targeted abuse.
00:10:08
Speaker
And I say that those are the worst case scenarios because I think that that is actually a minority of people who end up in care, where it's abuse that isn't, wouldn't be abuse that's done for abuse sake, right? So like sexual violence, like the idea of power and control.
00:10:33
Speaker
But in my experience, living in different homes and engaging with different kids in the system, a lot of it comes down to poverty. A lot of it comes down to intergenerational trauma. It's really hard to raise kids if you never had a parent who demonstrated parenting to you. If you are a kid who had to survive
00:10:56
Speaker
on your own, how you don't really have the tools available to then raise the next generation. And poverty, it's such a huge factor. I mean, in my case, we had significant issues with poverty. My family lived in poverty for a long time when I was young, like my immediate family.
00:11:22
Speaker
And then domestic violence is a huge part of intervention as well as being in a situation where one partner is violent towards another. And we all know what that looks like. We all know how difficult it is to leave. It's even more difficult when you have kids. And if you're someone who doesn't have their own means of income, and this is predominantly women, if you don't have the ability to make your own living to support yourself and your kids,
00:11:52
Speaker
It's, it's a very real sense of being trapped. Okay, so what's the kind of historical and colonial context of the child intervention system? Like, you know, I didn't become aware of the term 60 scoop until I was an adult, right? Like, from everything that I've kind of learned as an adult, like these systems were used as a, you know, as a force of oppression of a way to kind of like,
00:12:19
Speaker
harm indigenous people, like how is that being felt in the system now? Well, absolutely. I mean, and I think a lot of that comes down to the idea of how colonization has enforced poverty upon certain groups and has determined what class structures look like and who gets to ascend to certain class structures and what that looks like and how racism and intergenerational trauma plays into that.
00:12:45
Speaker
Like in my case, I'm white, my family's white. We come from generations of living in Canada, coming over before the war from all parts of the UK. But my mom was pregnant with me two years before the more intolerant decision.
00:13:11
Speaker
There wasn't, like she didn't even have a choice. Like this wasn't an option for her. And the idea of adoption was so like scandalous that the, like my dad's side of the family, there's that class pressure to like make it work, right? Like pull up your bootstraps, get jobs, do the best you can. And in reality, that's not how people, that's not how families operate. That's not how things can, it doesn't work out
00:13:41
Speaker
just because you want to try really, really hard. And when women don't have a choice, when women are being forced into a corner and they don't really have the agency or the autonomy to make these decisions for themselves, then they end up being consistently reinforced to being put in a position of survival. And survival makes us act on instinct, not like necessarily what's going to be good for me five years from now, but how am I going to have a roof over my head today?
00:14:11
Speaker
Um, and I think when we're talking about like this class structure and this, and this kind of, uh, trauma that's been enforced by governments, we've seen this kind of repeated over and over again with forced sterilization, the 60 scoop residential schools, the idea that we can force people, certain people to raise into a
Success Stories in Intervention
00:14:33
Speaker
certain class. And if they don't, then they deserve to be punished for it. So women.
00:14:39
Speaker
getting pregnant out of wedlock, well, that's your fault. You're going to be punished for it. You're going to have to deal with the consequences. And that's what the children are, right? Like, that's what they're considered as the consequences. It's like, this is your fault. So deal with it. That doesn't provide a family structure or any kind of family support. And we've seen a lot of Indigenous families go through, and Indigenous women go through similar things where
00:15:06
Speaker
they are being put in positions that are impossible and expected to find a way to make it work. And then when they can't, instead of systems, whether that be community, mutual aid, social networks, social service networks, actually supporting families from the ground up and giving opportunities for early intervention when it comes to poverty or food insecurity or housing insecurity,
00:15:36
Speaker
the classic treatment is like, let it go, let it go, let it go until it's so bad that the state is forced to act because the concept of like, we must save the children isn't introduced as a, we must save the family or we must support the family, but more like, okay, now we just have to take kids out and give them a quote unquote better chance at life when we know that that's not often what happens on the other side.
00:16:05
Speaker
So the way that most people, especially like me, end up hearing about this system are the tragedies that happen far too often. Things like the Serenity case that Paula Simon's talked about for months and months.
00:16:20
Speaker
But the case you're working on right now is actually a case of the system working. It's actually like good news. That is, you know, until the UCP kind of come along and fuck everything
Impact of Benefit Cuts on Youth Transition
00:16:32
Speaker
up. Can you kind of give us the context of your case? It is really incredible, this person's story.
00:16:39
Speaker
So back in the early 2000s, there was a acknowledgement by the Alberta government that for children who grew up in care, just the government wiping their hands clean. And once those children turned 18, it didn't lead to effective outcomes for those youth formerly in care. That the government had to invest a significant amount of emotional and financial resources into ensuring that these youth
00:17:07
Speaker
successfully transitioned to independent adulthood. So in 2004, the Alberta government created this support financial assistance program, the SAFA program, which effectively provided children who were aged out of care who the government determined could not exist independently and sustainably as an adult on their own with the emotional and financial supports necessary to aid that transition to sustainable adulthood.
00:17:37
Speaker
And in 2013, well, initially the cutoff for that program was the age of 22. So youth who have aged out of care would receive those supports until the age of 22. But in 2013, Minister Buller of the PC government actually extended that age cutoff to the age of 24.
00:17:59
Speaker
And that was based on the science, actually, and the significant amount of research into what children who have grown up in care, who face a significant amount of trauma, who may not have natural supports to rely upon as part of that transition towards adulthood required. And in terms of the science, it's well understood that the brain is still growing up until the
00:18:28
Speaker
the age of at least 25, that judgment and decision-making part of the brain is still developing. And for many children who grew up in care, they may face certain emotional or developmental problems or delays that may not allow them to fully function as an adult at the age of 18. And I think that goes with any child, whether they grew up in care or not. There is an expectation
00:18:54
Speaker
requirement on some level that national supports in their life continue to support them until they're able to function on their own. And this program, the SAFA program yielded a number of great results for a number of individuals. It gave many people a shot, a shot at sustainable life, a shot at, you know, addictions treatment, whatever an individual needed to make that transition towards independent adulthood.
00:19:22
Speaker
and thousands have gone through the system. It is a remarkable program and up until November of this year, it was one of the most generous in the sense of the amount given as well as the cutoff age. But with the new UCP government, they took aim at this
00:19:40
Speaker
policy, this program for some reason, and they retroactively tried to turn back the cutoff age from age 24 to 22 and wouldn't grandfather any of those 2100 participants as part of that change. So if you were 23 years old, as a result of the change, you'd be cut off immediately. And the consequence of this is significant because
00:20:10
Speaker
It's not just financial supports because as important as that is, that doesn't really dictate outcomes according to the science on this. It's really the national supports and Jen mentioned
00:20:25
Speaker
social worker worker for many youth in care is critical for outcomes. And what the program did was it was essentially a continuation of the child welfare program with less restrictions, but that ongoing one on one wraparound relationship with a social worker to help folks work through the process or develop plans and goals and execute them in order to achieve sustainable adulthood and
00:20:53
Speaker
That's what's missing here is that the government not only wants to cut these emotional supports and financial supports in this abrupt manner, but there's no backup to ensure that those necessary supports have continued, particularly that wraparound emotional support provided by a dedicated social worker.
00:21:13
Speaker
So
Injunction and Legal Actions
00:21:14
Speaker
the government just wants to yank away these supports, both these financial and these social supports for these folks aging out of foster care. They just want to yank them away from the kids, no grandfathering, no nothing. And you're making the argument that this is a violation of their charter rights, that this is cruel and unusual.
00:21:33
Speaker
Exactly. It's not necessarily that folks have a right to this program. And that's just because the charter is interpreted very restrictively when it comes to kind of benefits and government support programs. But the fact that these 2100 individuals were promised to the age of 24, they built their goals, their life plans towards sustainable adulthood.
00:21:55
Speaker
on that basis and now the government's like, well, you have to jam all that you planned out for a six year period into four years or in some cases into a number of months.
00:22:07
Speaker
Okay, Avnish, so in this case, your client that you that is working with you on this case against the government, she is, you know, an indigenous woman, and she's kind of undergone, you know, some horrific things. And she's come out of it on the other side, and she's doing quite well. But she has gone through incredible, incredible shit. And like, part of her story is what makes up this case. And just a content warning for people like we are going, we're not going to get in deep into the detail, but
00:22:35
Speaker
What did happen to AC is horrific, and if you don't want to listen to stuff about childhood abuse and sexual abuse, you might want to take the next few minutes off. But Avnish, can you give us more of the details on AC's story as it is relevant to the case?
00:22:55
Speaker
Absolutely. And as Jen mentioned that, you need to look at the child welfare system or the apprehension system as a continuation or legacy of the residential school system of just broader colonialism of the sixties group. Because the young women that I've kind of helped in this case, I met with a number of them in relation to this lawsuit. The principal,
00:23:23
Speaker
litigant or a client that I have, her name is AC. And she comes from an indigenous community of indigenous background. And her entire life has just been subject to, I guess, unspeakable acts of violence and trauma from a young age. She suffers a significant amount of domestic abuse in the hands of her mother.
00:23:48
Speaker
who was dealing with her own trauma, not to mention the fact that at the age of 12, AC was procured in a trap house. And essentially as a child, she was sexually exploited, given alcohol and drugs and kind of
00:24:08
Speaker
set up to have sex with men and she was rescued from that and spent many years dealing with that trauma with addiction issues and other issues with violence inflicted upon her.
00:24:26
Speaker
But at some point in her life, after the birth of her daughter, she made a plan and was determined to change things. And she worked with her social worker, the one that she had since the age of 11.
00:24:43
Speaker
and developed this framework and approach to dealing with what she had experienced, the trauma, but also creating a path forward for herself and her daughter that was healthy, that was sustainable, that would allow her to function independently. And I cannot even begin to describe AC's resiliency and her courage and what she's accomplished.
00:25:06
Speaker
So after she turned 18, the government determined that she was not ready to be on her own and she was put on the SAPA program. The same social worker she had in care was designated to work with her and they developed a six-year plan up until the age of 24 of what she wanted to achieve in order to live a sustainable life. Some things on that list included
00:25:30
Speaker
getting a degree in Native Studies at the U of A so that she could be an indigenous liaison officer. In addition, she wanted to create an alcohol-free home for her daughter and her so that her daughter would not experience the kind of childhood that she experienced growing up.
00:25:51
Speaker
So she worked towards that plan hard and she was succeeding. She was a few credits away from transferring to the U of A. She was sober. She had a home that reflected what she was trying to achieve for her daughter. Everything was going well. And then in November, the government announced that it would be cutting this program and scaling back the cutoff age from 24 to 22. That would mean that AC would be cut off
00:26:28
Speaker
24 when she had to kind of built her or sorry 22 2022 when she had built her plan or so she would be cut off abruptly and the consequence of that has been Significant when she heard that this was happening She cried and was just devastated that she felt that she had to go back to sex work in order to support for her family because She didn't know what else she could do to provide for her daughter. She didn't feel like she had other skills or other
00:26:46
Speaker
in August of this year and not in
00:26:58
Speaker
abilities to kind of get a job or to support herself and her family and she knew that the other financial support streams weren't sufficient for her family. So with that in mind, AC kind of met with me and we tried to craft a lawsuit that would kind of address this and at least stop it until we can determine whether this was lawful or not.
00:27:26
Speaker
So Avneesh,
State's Ideological Focus vs Practical Needs
00:27:27
Speaker
based on the media reports I've been reading this and my discussions with you, you actually won and a very important injunction that means that AC's benefits and the benefits of hundreds or thousands of other folks aren't being taken away. That's huge, right?
00:27:41
Speaker
Yeah, basically, we stopped the government from enforcing this change to the program until the full case can be heard. And that's an injunction. Basically, we're saying we want the government to stop what we think will cause significant harm to people until we determine if what they're doing is actually constitutional. So we won that, and that means that
00:28:03
Speaker
Nobody's cut off right now. All those 2100 folks can continue to receive that emotional and financial support that is vital for their lives until this case is fully heard.
00:28:16
Speaker
The government decided to appeal that decision. We got that decision in April of, actually in March of 2020, and they've decided to appeal it. The appeal will likely be heard sometime in the fall. So until that occurs, we know that all the youth are safe, but we don't know what's going to happen afterwards or at the appeal. So we're just kind of concerned.
00:28:42
Speaker
Okay, so if you're listening to this podcast, you already know that the UCP are scum, but I mean, appealing this injunction is like an incredible scumbag move, right? And even the fact that you won this injunction is just shows like how much harm was potentially being caused by what the government was doing taking this away, right?
00:29:03
Speaker
Well, I wouldn't say that we proved the harm, but we proved the potential harm. And you're right, Duncan, I think only five of these have ever been granted in Canada's history against government legislation. And the reason why we won was twofold. It was that, well, the story of AC is just so compelling. What truth endured, what could overcome her resiliency and how this change undermines everything. And frankly,
00:29:34
Speaker
how the public interest was served by doing this. We have the system that is meant to help youth in AC situation succeed in life. In many cases can survive. And how does cutting off that age requirement to make it harder for people as well as in this arbitrary manner that is contrary to the expectations and the plans of these folks, how does that further that aim of helping these people?
00:29:54
Speaker
What the government didn't do and put into evidence was
00:30:02
Speaker
and the government had no answer and that's why this injunction was granted.
00:30:08
Speaker
So I know this isn't a new insight. Lots of people have said this before. We've said it before on the podcast, but in this case, the cruelty does seem to be the point, right? Like any amount of financial savings on this is going to be negligible. The fact that the government is fighting so hard to take these benefits away from these people who need it most says a lot about what this government's priorities are, what it believes in, right?
00:30:33
Speaker
say like from like a non legal perspective, but looking at how states have operated when it comes to social safety nets kind of writ large is this idea of managing and this can sound really cold, but like it's managing liability, right? And this UCP government takes it one step further by like they're leading not with
00:30:57
Speaker
What is the practical application of our policy decisions? Or what is the public interest or the public good of our policy decisions? But how do we shape this province in the ideology that our privileged class would like to see advanced? And this case with AC is a really prime example of somebody who is incredibly resilient
00:31:21
Speaker
has the base understanding of what it means to survive and is actively working to survive and to thrive and to make a new life and to furthermore stop the cycle by working to become a stable parent for their kid. And this government's ideology is much more interested in this kind of self survival, self selection, you know, the pull up your bootstraps that I heard,
00:31:49
Speaker
every minute of my life growing up, especially under Ralph Klein. But I just want to kind of note that is an important part of this government's ideology. They lead with ideology. They don't seem to really care about the application and what that does and how that harms people. But the liberal government federally is doing the same thing with Cindy Blackstock and consistently trying to not
00:32:18
Speaker
abide by the court's rulings of supporting kids who have been apprehended and taken into care across the country. And so this isn't something specific. It's not something specific to one party because what we've seen is regardless of who's in power over and over and over again, the state wants to limit the amount of interaction, personal investment that they have in individuals
00:32:46
Speaker
Um, but they, they also want to, uh, you know, they would rather spend their money internally fighting in court than just give money to people. And at the end of the day, like, and I agree with Evanish very much that the social worker piece, that that social support is, is incredibly important because if we, if people reflect and think about, you know, who do I turn to when I have a question? Who do I turn to when I need some support? Who do I turn to when I have a bad day?
00:33:13
Speaker
When you've been continually ripped out of home after home after home and resettled in different communities or different homes, it's hard to build those relationships. Furthermore, it's even harder to trust people. If I open myself up to somebody and share my experiences, are they going to treat me with the same, you know, are they going to look at me the same way that they did afterwards? Or are they going to think that I'm every stereotype that's been said about me?
00:33:42
Speaker
And the level of shame that's ingrained with being part of the system and being institutionalized in that way is really high. And it's really high for people even with as much privilege as I have. So I think part of this is recognizing that this government in particular is leading with an ideology that is not working. Like it's not making our province better. It's demonstrably harming people, communities,
00:34:10
Speaker
our provinces balance, like fiscal balance, but this is a state problem. Like every province and our national state government consistently would rather spend money on court cases and injunctions and all sorts of other kind of nonsense than they would in putting the money into the hands of people. And I agree that the social worker piece is so important, but I also think that a basic income, even if it's only for a few years,
00:34:40
Speaker
That pressure to not have to worry about how do I put a roof over my head or food on my table gives the mental and emotional space to heal and to work on yourself and to make plans for the future. Like Evanish said, planning for six years versus having to condense that planning into four years. And that's not easy. That's not an easy thing to do. And it's particularly difficult when you don't have the social support, a natural community of folks
00:35:09
Speaker
who are going to step up and be there for you when you need help or feel like you can ask them. Because the other, I would just mention that the other side to this that the government is also putting pressure on is asking for help is dangerous. If you've already been in the system and this is like as a white person, I know that I'm not at the same risk, but if you're a person of color,
00:35:37
Speaker
as particularly an indigenous, a young indigenous woman who's grown up in care and has had documented cases, I'm assuming, and I don't know this for sure. So Avnish, I'm not saying this has anything to do with the case, but as someone who has members of my own family who have been in the sex trade, there are always, as someone who has had members of my own family in the sex trade, there are always interactions with police.
00:36:06
Speaker
And when you interact, the more you interact with these kind of like criminal authorities, the less likely you're going to be to ask for help because it will be seen as you not being able to do what you need to do. And I'm sure that one of AC's biggest worries and concerns is losing her kid the way that, and her kid being exposed to the same things that they were exposed to.
00:36:35
Speaker
Absolutely. In this case, there's also another kind of litigant. Her name is JF, and both AC and JF are young single mothers, and they do everything for their kids. And that's the primary concern is preventing their children from being apprehended, which is extremely likely if they're cut off from the SAFA program. Absolutely. Those cycles of poverty recreate themselves, and without any supports,
00:37:05
Speaker
how do you move forward? How do any of us move forward, right? Even if you're in the best position possible. And we see this all the time. People have home fires and they lose their home and their community organizes go find me campaigns or their friends and neighbors donate things or let people stay. Like who's there supporting AC and supporting these other complainants or defendants. I'm not sure the legal term. I apologize.
00:37:29
Speaker
But who's there supporting these folks and saying hey, you know what if you lose this funding you can come and stay with me or let's organize a GoFundMe campaign so that you have living expenses for the next year so that you can readjust to what the government has put on you. Again, no consent, no agency, no autonomy. It's this idea that the government is able to punish but they're unwilling to support and that is such a
00:37:57
Speaker
a problem because the other piece is if you feel like the entire government is against you and the entire government is telling you that you're not good enough, that you're not able to make it, that you should pull up your bootstraps or whatever and get on with it. And they're saying that you don't deserve help, you don't deserve support, that you're not worth anything. That message coming from any kind of authority is devastating to people, especially if they've
00:38:28
Speaker
had to have that reiterated to them over and over and over again throughout their lives. Okay. So this is obviously extremely cruel and capricious and mean, and that seems to be how this government is happy to operate. But I mean, at some point, I'm just assuming that the government is doing this for financial reasons. There must be some type of financial savings that are at stake here. And in the course of this case, Avnish, have you been able to kind of come up with that dollar amount? Absolutely.
00:38:57
Speaker
The problem I think the government has in this case is that it hasn't put forward what the reason is for this, why this is being enacted. But in our own research, we found that in committee discussions, the minister has indicated that this will save about $18 million a year from her budget, and he doesn't
00:39:24
Speaker
I think we can reasonably infer that that's the reason here. It's not as the government claims that this reduction in maximum age is for the interest of the participants, but it's really just to save her ministry about $18 million a year. And just to pick up on the first part that you mentioned, Duncan, we're suing them
Personal Experience: Aging Out of Foster Care
00:39:51
Speaker
Um, because we're saying that this claim, um, breaches section 12 of the charter, which prevents governments from treating individuals in a cruel manner. Um, so you're bang on and saying that it's our central thesis that this is, uh, that the.
00:40:07
Speaker
cut and the manner in which it's being implemented is cool. I just say that government lawyers are good to deal with. It's not necessarily them, but it's really the spirit of the decision and its impact that is deeply concerning to my clients and me.
00:40:27
Speaker
Okay, Jen, so you obviously were in the system. Obviously, the 24 to 22 thing didn't affect you at all, but do you have any firsthand experience with this program at all? I actually didn't know about this program, to be honest, until we started talking about it and I was doing some research last night because this was never mentioned to me when I was aging out.
00:40:57
Speaker
I've had three younger siblings, one of them is no longer alive, but my understanding is none of them also were given this information or this opportunity. So part of it depends on an assessment from your social worker too on whether or not when you age out if you have family supports or family care, I'm assuming.
00:41:22
Speaker
I was in a very different position. So when I graduated high school in 2004, I was the only child living in kinship or foster care in South Calgary to graduate high school. And I was given a, what I jokingly referred to as like a congratulations on surviving bursary to go to 10 University.
00:41:50
Speaker
It was a scholarship that was kind of a collaboration between a bank and the Child and Family Services and I think another partner. And because I went to university and because I was able to get that scholarship, I was able to join my university's health and dental plan as well as I was provided with a summer job. So my immediate financial circumstance wasn't such that I wouldn't have
00:42:19
Speaker
been able to make, like I wouldn't have been able to, to go out and and kind of like, minimally support myself in that way, because I was able to attend university, but I was only able to attend university because of that scholarship. And then after that scholarship was done, because of another program that's also run through the Alberta government called the advancing futures bursary. And that bursary is
00:42:48
Speaker
I think it's actually fairly unique in Canada. BC put something in rather similar a couple of years ago, but it is a bursary that anyone who's lived in foster care can access if they've been accepted into a post-secondary program. And it pays for your tuition and your books. It also gives you a living stipend, like a living kind of expense monthly, and that
00:43:15
Speaker
depends, the amount you get depends on whether or not you have dependents and how many dependents you have. So for me, I received that bursary and that actually, that bursary enabled me to finish my university degree because I wouldn't have been able to financially afford it without hand. Like I didn't grow up with an RESP.
00:43:39
Speaker
there was no money for me when I went to school. I have incredible family members, and I give my grandmother who raised me in different periods of my life, but particularly when I was in high school, I lived with her as part of the Kinship Care Program, and without her, I wouldn't be where I am in any way, shape, or form, and she was incredibly helpful, but she had
Benefits of Support Programs
00:44:07
Speaker
She was getting close to retirement when I was in university. She didn't have the financial means to pay my tuition or that sort of thing, or my living expenses. So that bursary was incredibly important, but more than that, both my younger sisters who went on to do post-secondary quite a few years after getting their GED, they were not able to go on and do post-secondary without that bursary either.
00:44:38
Speaker
One of my younger siblings has four children. There's no way that she couldn't work and go to school. In order to go to school, she had to make money somehow. And that bursary enabled her to go to school full time without going into too much debt and continue to support her four children all under the age of 10, which was incredible because it gives her a chance to do something
00:45:07
Speaker
that is meaningful to her and that gives her that sense of accomplishment for herself and to also demonstrate to the next generation that with support, with community support, with support from your network and with support from the government, you can go on to do really great things and how important it is and it enables her to give back to her community as well because that pressure is relieved.
00:45:38
Speaker
But the idea of saving, regardless of how much the government is saving, because to cut off people for two years worth of support is ridiculous. It's a ridiculous economic argument, first of all, because we know that upfront supports, particularly cash enhanced supports, are going to go a lot farther. They're going to go further within the local economy. They're also going to support that person and give that person more autonomy and agency moving forward.
00:46:07
Speaker
which makes them less and less reliant upon other services. So it saves tons of money in the long run. But it also is unbelievably cruel to tell somebody, and I don't think we can, I think it's ridiculous to pretend that at the age of 24, anyone is in a position to say that they are completely self-sufficient. I think that's a ridiculous argument to make at any age.
00:46:34
Speaker
But it tells somebody like, well, you should be able to make it on your own. And if you can't, it's because you failed. And I think that's an incredibly cruel act. And it's in line with what they've done to cut puff funding, which is funding for children with, I think, kind of it's a diverse range of challenges, learning challenges in the classroom, the cuts that they've been making to the minimum, or that they want to make to minimum wage workers under the age of 18.
00:47:04
Speaker
How are people supposed to get ahead if we're continually told you can't? We're not going to let you. I mean, this is the same argument used for homelessness, right? Providing people with a home just actually saves society money in the long run. I mean, not that we should be viewing the problem of housing or the problem of taking care of kids in the intervention system as strictly financial, but it also saves you money. Yeah.
00:47:32
Speaker
Well, I mean, we know that the comprehensive outcomes of somebody who's in comfortable shelter with reasonable income, who are able to pay their bills, they're able to do some sort of post-secondary if that's what they're interested in. We know that their outcomes are going to be higher. Their earning potential is higher. Their confidence, their networks are stronger.
00:47:58
Speaker
Even just the opportunity to be in a space where you're given challenges and opportunities to succeed can improve health outcomes, mental health and physical health outcomes. So economically, to save $18 million a year or whatever the number is, to save that for one budget or two budgets, cycles, we pay for that 10 years later.
Critique of UCP's Social Policy Ideology
00:48:24
Speaker
It's the same, you know, it's the way
00:48:28
Speaker
that we should be looking at the economy is what does our society look like in 20 years? And not what does it look like next year? What is our budget bottom line next year? Because the reality is that people don't live for one year, right? We live our lives extends, generations continue. And every impact on this generation impacts the generation next. And what's the cost on the system? Like economically, I mean, you know, this isn't like this isn't the emotional argument, which is should be central because it is
00:48:58
Speaker
an incredibly cruel act this government is doing. But economically speaking, what's the cost on the system when the next generation of kids have to go into care because their parents were struck at the knees? This is what it is. It's an act of violence from the state against individuals for no reason. These individuals have done nothing but do everything possible to be more self-sufficient and more self-sustainable.
Media Coverage of Child Welfare System
00:49:50
Speaker
Okay, so...
00:49:55
Speaker
I don't know a lot about the child intervention system, and I'm very grateful to have Evnish and Jen on to kind of talk me through and walk me through it. But what I do know, at least a little bit more about, is the media. And I think, broadly speaking, that the media has done a very good job of covering Evnish's case, and that folks like Sammy Hudez and Omar Mosley and Andrea Hunkar have actually done
00:50:20
Speaker
a very good job of telling this story. This is what is essentially a good news story here, of course, barring the fact that the government wants to take this away, but the story of AC at its core is fundamentally a good news story.
00:50:35
Speaker
Absolutely. And there's been subsequent stories too of others in the program who are going to be affected and, you know, the value that it provided to them. And these are uplifting stories in many respects. They're not the typical doom and gloom, the horror of the child welfare system. It's about people making use of resources and transforming their lives despite the odds. And that's what I've really noticed about media focus on these stories is that
00:51:05
Speaker
It's sort of like a light on a positive aspects of the system, not withstanding the fact that we're...
00:51:14
Speaker
trying to stop the government from ending that. And that human narrative approach that both, like a couple of people did, like Andrea Hunker, CBC Edmonton, Sammy Hudes to the Calgary Herald, really focused on AC and others and provided the story through them. And I think that it was really powerful and it's a good way to tell the experiences of people in the system. You know what, like,
00:51:39
Speaker
And Jen can maybe attest to this. The child welfare system in Alberta is intricate, complex, and it's hard for people, journalists in small newsrooms to kind of wrap their heads around it. But I'm really grateful to those journalists who have and who've kind of
00:51:58
Speaker
they understand what the story is about, it's about the people, and then they really put it, shifted the focus on the narrative here, the personal experience. And I think they've done a wonderful job. And if you read Andrew Yanker and Sammy Hudes' work, you'll see what I mean. Yeah, and I would agree with that, the idea of media, media needing to kind of focus on those personal narratives,
00:52:26
Speaker
Because the system is incredibly complicated and it's incredibly complex and it's very difficult to navigate it, even when you're in it, to understand all the boundaries and all the rules. And I have so much respect for social workers because they're given an impossible task. They're being asked to put band-aids on intergenerational trauma, cycles of poverty, cycles of domestic abuse,
00:52:53
Speaker
uh, you know, the, the latent misogyny within our institutions, um, the blatant misogyny within our institutions. They are, um, they're, these social workers are put in impossible situations, which means often that they don't get to tell, um, their stories either, or, or bring about that narrative change and, and, and make it not about a case number, but about a person to the broader community.
00:53:22
Speaker
But the other piece to it is I understand why media would find it hard to discuss the system as it is because it's difficult to come out and say I lived or I grew up in foster kinship care. In my experience, like I, so I'm incredibly,
00:53:49
Speaker
privilege in a lot of cases. I do have family that has been supportive. I have been given the opportunity to go to post-secondary, to get a post-secondary education, which changed my life, I would say. And that's wonderful, but the stigma that goes along with sharing a story of violence or of being institutionalized or in a system,
00:54:19
Speaker
And what that feels like is difficult. It's a difficult thing to navigate. It changes how people relate to you. But there's also the fear that it could happen again. That gnawing fear of anyone who's grown up in poverty or who's grown up in the system or institutionalized, it's always there. It's always there at the back of your mind that maybe I'm only one disaster or one bad choice away from
00:54:47
Speaker
being right back where I was, you know, 10 years ago, 20 years ago, whatever. And particularly for parents, coming forward and talking about this can put your family at risk. It can put your kids at risk. Like that is the reality of how apprehension and intervention is felt by people who've been involved in that. So I know that
00:55:13
Speaker
My story is not actually particularly bad. I am incredibly lucky to have not experienced the same kind of trauma that other people have experienced. And I was lucky to even be placed in a home with my sisters for a few years when I was living in foster and kinship care, which is incredibly rare when you come from a family with multiple siblings.
00:55:44
Speaker
And when I tell my story and when I talk to people about this, I know it's not that bad. And I also know it's not that exceptional. I know a ton of folks who have grown up in very similar situations, but a lot of people don't interact with those conversations and don't have those conversations. So when it's talked about in the media and the Paula Simon stories particularly bother me, to be honest, as someone who grew up in fostering kinship care, because I understand that she's coming from a place of care and of empathy.
00:56:13
Speaker
I find that the conversation in the narratives doesn't center the voices of the people involved at all. It completely takes the story away from them and it doesn't discuss all of the factors leading into that. And further, I think it exploits the families that she's talking about and puts them at risk because it's not their voice and it's not their narrative and it's not
00:56:40
Speaker
where they're coming from or sharing their success stories that they have now. And I think that that can be really damaging because again, it reinforces the idea that nothing gets better. Everything is always bad. People can't change and that in the life of a foster kid or someone growing up in kinship care, that there's nothing good that happens, which is not the truth. Like the truth is that
00:57:07
Speaker
Life is hard, yes, and sometimes it was much harder than it needed to be, but sometimes it was also great. And I have wonderful memories of my mom and my siblings when we were really young. And to be honest, I don't have those same memories of some of the foster homes I lived in. So that idea of just focusing on the bad and what families
00:57:33
Speaker
at their very worst look like is really damaging to how people view folks and kids who grew up in the system. I would argue that the Paul Simon's way of covering the stories of these folks caught up in the system actually makes it worse, makes the system worse.
Positive Media Narratives
00:57:51
Speaker
I think it does. I think it does make it worse because I think it means that people are afraid to come forward when they see their story being exploited like that.
00:58:01
Speaker
Why would you come forward? Why would you say anything? When it comes to Paula Simon's version of telling these stories, one of the reasons why I critique them is that there's no actual critique of the legacy of colonialism, imperialism, and capitalism that created the conditions for these tragedies to happen.
00:58:26
Speaker
The real reason why I get mad at Paula Simons for these stories is that she doesn't actually contemplate or talk to or platform the people who actually have the long-term solutions for these problems, right? She's not talking about, you know, giving indigenous people land back or giving indigenous people, you know, agency and autonomy over their lands or their bodies or their governance systems. Like those are the long-term solutions for this problem, right? Or even when we're talking about poverty, she's not talking about taking money from rich people and giving it to poor people. Like that's how you cure poverty.
00:58:56
Speaker
That's never in a Paula Simon story on these tragedies, right? I think also another piece is to understand that no one wants to be an abusive parent, right? Or very, I shouldn't say no one. But when someone is raised with intergenerational trauma, and I've been very blessed to be given stories from elders who've grown up in residential school and communities that I've worked in, particularly in Northern Manitoba,
00:59:26
Speaker
You know, when they talk to me and, you know, because I'm friends with their grandchildren or their children and they share their experience in residential schools with me, the shame that they encounter in that is immense. And because they don't want to be that hurt anymore, but they also know that they've made mistakes and they feel like those mistakes are all on them.
00:59:54
Speaker
When in reality, everyone makes mistakes every day. We have, you know, the most perfect seeming family has moments where those parents have done things that they probably didn't, they wouldn't do again. And it would be ridiculous for any parent to say that they, that they didn't lose their temper at one point and say something sharp to their kid that they didn't mean or that they
01:00:20
Speaker
you know, forgot that baseball ended at 4 and they showed up at the field at 4.30 or what have you, right? And I think it's important to understand that the shame that comes along with having made mistakes and obviously there are situations where children are unsafe and in those unsafe situations, it is a matter of life or death to put them into a different care environment. But we don't
01:00:48
Speaker
We rarely don't talk about how those parents can get supports because there are no supports. You know, if you're a parent that grew up in an abusive household and you don't have the tools to manage anger or manage addiction and you are not in a place where you can ask for that support or find that support, then how do you ever change that cycle? How do you ever break that cycle?
01:01:16
Speaker
How do you ever improve your own wellbeing in order to support your kids? And I think that's something that actually a book, or a journalist who I think has done a really great job of talking about what families go through, and particularly intergenerational trauma is Tanya Talaga. Obviously different subject matters, but
01:01:42
Speaker
really great understanding of like how the whole community and the whole family is impacted and what that feels like for the whole family and not just maybe parents and kids but also aunties and uncles and grandparents and cousins and close friends and and how we look at that as a system that needs support and not just okay well let's just move kids out of the community or move kids out of their home because
01:02:09
Speaker
That's traumatic. That is a trauma being enforced by the state. There are better ways to deal with trauma within family than introducing more trauma. And I think that when we look at this from a media perspective, there's very little attention paid to what happens on the in-between. And I really do think that the media stories I've read about AC have been really
01:02:38
Speaker
refreshing because it's about who she is now. Like the story is very much focused on who she is as a person. You know, obviously the context is put into place and her own quotes. The story is the story's lead with her own experiences in her own words. But the majority of the story talks about who she is now and who she is as a person and doesn't focus just on the trauma
Fundraising for Legal Battle
01:03:02
Speaker
that she endured. And I think that's really important.
01:03:05
Speaker
Yeah, no, I agree, Jen. And I think we got to leave it there. There is a couple more things I do want to get to, though. And Avneesh, I know that you are in the middle of a fundraiser for your case that you're working on. I know you've been working on it pro bono and that you're close to halfway of reaching your fundraising goal. So what are the details there?
01:03:24
Speaker
for sure. Thanks, Sankin. We're doing this very complex, very expensive case with the expectation and the knowledge that the clients can't pay because it's just an enormous cost and they survive
01:03:39
Speaker
entirely on that 2000 a month government grant that they receive or funding that they receive. So we're seeking for those in the community who care about these issues who don't want to be idle and standing by on the sidelines to get involved by donating. And hopefully with their support, we can kind of overcome the significant power imbalance with no further government and continue to deliver
Supporting the Podcast Project
01:04:06
Speaker
some positive outcomes for not only AC, but the thousands of people in the staff of program. Awesome. Okay. And what's the best way for people to follow along with your work, follow you on social media? Yeah, you can, you can go to Agnesh Nada on Twitter, which is something I'm not going to spell for you, but I will have it on the show page. So thanks for that.
01:04:36
Speaker
And you, Jen, what's the best way for people to follow along with what you do? Uh, yeah, they can, um, I'm not very active on Twitter anymore, but they can follow me, um, at Jay Prosser, um, online on Twitter and, uh, and they can also take a look at the work I've been doing, um, if they go to my website, which is JenProsser.ca.
01:05:03
Speaker
Okay. Well, thanks so much to Avnish and Jen for coming on the pod and, you know, talking about me with this is an extremely important case that Avnish is working on, an extremely important issue. And if you like this journalism, if you like this interview, you want to hear more like it, you know, please go ahead and share this podcast with your friends. It's one of the best ways you can promote us.
01:05:24
Speaker
One of the other ways that you can help us out is by leaving us a review on Apple Podcasts or your Podcatcher of Choice. Doing that actually does really help people find the podcast. These Podcatchers really prioritize these reviews. And finally, the third and final thing you can do if you like this podcast, if you've made it all the way to the end, if you've listened to other podcasts, if you really like us, it's time to take the leap. And we would really appreciate your financial support.
01:05:49
Speaker
The easiest way to do this is go to theprogressreport.ca slash patrons and you can join the 250, 275 other folks who contribute regularly to keep this independent media project going. We've got big plans and we should have big announcements coming up in the month of June.
01:06:07
Speaker
and so stay tuned. But if you like what we do, please support us. If you want to get a hold of me, if you have any thoughts, things that you think I need to hear about, you can reach me at Duncan Kinney on Twitter, and you can reach me by email at DuncanK at ProgressAlberta.ca. Thanks so much to Cosmic Family Communist for the amazing theme. Thank you so much for listening, and goodbye.
01:06:30
Speaker
Did you know that Progress Alberta is part of a national community of leftist podcasts on the Ricochet Podcast Network? You can find the Alberta Advantage, 49th Parahel, Kino Lefter, Well Reds, The Progress Report, Laffy Sales, Out of Left Field, and Unpacking the News, as well as a bunch of other awesome podcasts at Ricochet Media or wherever you download your podcasts.