Inuit youth in Nunavik (northern Quebec) bring class action against governments of Canada and Quebec over discriminatory underfunding

MONTREAL, Feb. 22, 2022 /CNW/ - Sotos Class Actions, Kugler Kandestin LLP and Coupal Chauvelot s.a. have filed an application for authorization to institute a class action regarding decades of allegedly discriminatory and unlawful underfunding of child welfare and other essential services for the Inuit in Nunavik—the vast region in northern Quebec.

The petitioners, Lucy Tookalook and Tanya Jones, bring this proposed class action to address the long-standing discriminatory and unlawful treatment of Inuit children, youth, and families in Nunavik by Canada and Quebec. The two governments have shared responsibility for the Inuit in northern Quebec since The James Bay and Northern Quebec Agreement in 1975.

The application, filed in the Superior Court of Québec in Montreal, alleges that both governments have breached class members' constitutional right to equality, among other rights, by failing to provide child welfare and other essential health and social services on a level that is substantively equal to what any other Canadian child receives. These constitutional violations have taken two forms.

First, youth who came into contact with the child welfare system were unnecessarily placed in state care in droves or were overlooked by the system altogether when they crucially needed protection. These twin evils stemmed from decades of callous decisions by both the provincial and federal governments not to fund, staff, support or maintain a child welfare system that was on par with what non-Inuit children receive and adapted to the realities of Nunavik. For example, these fundings decisions resulted in failures to provide basic child welfare prevention and protection, and to adjust funding of child-welfare services to account for the unique circumstances of the Inuit in Nunavik, including their inter-generational trauma, historical disadvantages, and remoteness. All of these failures occurred in ignorance of the north star in youth protection: the best interests of the children.

Second, Canada and Quebec deprived Inuit children of essential health, social and other services.

Public commissions have repeatedly sounded the alarm that Inuit children needing child welfare and other essential services are in a state of crisis, and face service gaps, delays and denials due to the gross underfunding in Nunavik. Instead of addressing these chronic failures, the two governments evaded responsibility, and each pointed to the other as the one with the obligation and jurisdiction to provide the service needed by the Inuit child in need.

The petitioners are both survivors of the child welfare system in Nunavik. "I am taking action today because I want to bring justice to my people—my people who have been treated as less than human for decades. I want Inuit children in Nunavik to have their day in court. I want their pain and suffering to be heard, felt and repaired", said Ms. Jones.

The petitioners also seek to end the discrimination and to prevent yet another generation of Inuit children from becoming lost in the cycle of an inter-generational crisis created by decades of discriminatory underfunding and neglect at the hands of the governments. "I was taken from my mother when I was born and sent thousands of miles away as a newborn to a hospital in Montreal. I was there for seven months, alone and with no support. I was then returned to Nunavik to a system that utterly abandoned me and other Inuit children in the face of heartless neglect and abuse. I don't want the same thing to happen to my kids and the next generations of Inuit in Quebec", said Ms. Tookalook.

For a copy of the petitioners' application for authorization as a class action, updates, and other information, please visit: https://www.sotosclassactions.com/cases/inuit-youth-in-nunavik/

SOURCE Sotos Class Actions

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