THUNDER BAY -- Nishnawbe Aski Nation chiefs were scheduled to meet with the Ontario minister of children and youth services on Thursday, but poor weather in Toronto grounded Michael Coteau's Wednesday night flight into Thunder Bay.
The NAN Chiefs Forum on Children Youth and Families went on without the minister, but the panel seating at the front of the room was conspicuously empty.
NAN Grand Chief Alvin Fiddler said chiefs and frontline workers had been meeting for two days in preparation for Coteau's visit, hoping to find a partner in the provincial government that can help bring equity to programs and infrastructure in remote First Nations communities.
Fiddler pointed out this week marks 10 years since the Human Rights Tribunal case that determined the federal government is systemically underfunding services that impact Indigenous children across Canada.
While NAN and its member communities have advanced reform plans in child welfare, policing, corrections, and mental health over the last decade, its leader says little has changed.
"It's making a lot of us feel angry about it because we're the ones who have to address that inequity. It's frustrating," Fiddler said.
"We're the ones on the front lines with our chiefs and councils, with our frontline workers. We're the ones who go to those funerals when these children kill themselves. It's something that's still very much a dire situation in our communities.
"And that's why we asked the provincial minister here today: to hear directly about the issues that are being raised here and to help us raise these issues with the federal government."
Chiefs who gathered at the Valhalla Inn this week said youth programs are sitting on the shelf while pilot programs expire without avenues to become long-term solutions.
Eabametoong First Nation Chief Elizabeth Atlookan said a youth centre has long been a priority for her community, but planning has been stalled. She said First Nations' leadership has done the front-end work to develop visions and program-specific solutions.
"They need to work with us. They need to see the vision from the communities," she said.
"The planning, the talk, has happened. Let's do it. I want to find a way with the help of the government."
Beyond youth programming and infrastructure, Constance Lake First Nation Robyn Bunting said inadequate health programming for adults is impacting the quality of life for the territory's children.
She sees the government making only short-term commitments to residential drug and alcohol programs for adults in her community while crisis response work falls to volunteers and insufficient childcare infrastructure exacerbates the issues for families that are already struggling.
"If you ask somebody for help, you're not just asking just because you're talking. You're asking because you're lost, you're so broken you have no hope and no one else to turn to," she said.
"I believe when these people ask for help, they're asking for help for their children because they're doing wrong to their children. They're hurting their children, they're so lost in their addiction they've finally hit rock bottom."
In a telephone interview Thursday afternoon, Coteau said he intends to reschedule the meeting. He said while Ontario will hold the federal government accountable to Indigenous youth at roundtable meetings, it wants to play its role in working toward equity.
"The provincial government has changed the way we approach our programming," Coteau said.
"Our Indigenous Children And Youth Strategy shifts our whole approach to working with Indiegous communities by saying we're not just going to develop a policy and say, 'how do you fit into this policy' or develop a program and say, 'how do you fit into this program.' It's working with the communities."
