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OTTAWA – First Nations chiefs have voted to reject a landmark $47.8-billion child welfare reform deal, reached in July with the Canadian government.

At a special chiefs assembly in Calgary hosted by the Assembly of First Nations, 267 out of 414 chiefs voted against a resolution in support of the deal after a lengthy debate that at points was emotionally charged as they argued either for or against it.

Resolutions remain on the agenda for the final day of the gathering on Friday, including for chiefs to be given another 90 days to review the deal, bringing another vote in January.

“Our leaders have rejected this draft agreement because they know what’s at stake: our children,” said Mary Teegee, the chair of the Our Children Our Way Society, in a statement.

“This was not a good agreement: we have to do better for our children.”

The deal was struck between Canada, the Chiefs of Ontario, Nishnawbe Aski Nation and the Assembly of First Nations after a nearly two-decade legal fight over the federal government’s underfunding of on-reserve child welfare services.

The Canadian Human Rights Tribunal said that was discriminatory.

It tasked Canada with coming to an agreement with First Nations to reform the system, and also with compensating children who were torn from their families and put in foster care.

Chiefs and service providers critiqued the deal for months, saying it didn’t go far enough to ensure the discrimination stops, and have blasted the federal government for what they say is its failure to consult with First Nations in negotiations.

In a statement Thursday night, Nishnawbe Aski Nation expressed its dissatisfaction with the deal not being ratified by chiefs in assembly.

“Leaders from across Ontario voiced their support and did their best for our children and families today, and we want to highlight the shameful way that the defeat of today’s resolution was celebrated by those in the room – many being those in the child welfare agencies who will continue to benefit from the status quo,” the statement says.

“Our leadership has given us a strong mandate to reject the status quo and assert their authority to control the care and well-being of their children … We will regroup, strategize, and begin discussions with the appropriate federal and provincial officials on a new path forward.”

Cindy Blackstock, executive director of the First Nations Child and Family Caring Society, which helped bring forward the initial human rights complaint, said before the vote that chiefs can do better than the deal that’s been reached, and that she cannot endorse it.

“I want to see a day when we get the discrimination stopped and it doesn’t happen again — and we can get there,” Blackstock said.

“Not in a long time; we got all the tools to be able to get there.”

The national chief of the Assembly of First Nations stressed on Wednesday and Thursday that wasn’t the case, saying a change in government could throw the reforms into question, while Blackstock highlighted the reforms are required by a legal order, not political will.

“I’ve lived through the Harper years, and the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal survived through the Harper years,” she said, referencing former Conservative prime minister Stephen Harper.

“Everything is on the table.”

In another address, Blackstock blasted the federal government for what she called a breach in its duty to consult with First Nations during negotiations, and after the deal was made public.

“Where is Canada?” she asked.

In a statement Wednesday, a spokesperson for the minister of Indigenous services said the department won’t tell First Nations organizations how to engage their own members.

The Assembly of First Nations is not a rights-holding organization, but rather a forum where 630 rights-holding chiefs across Canada can advocate for their concerns.

The federal government has a duty to consult with First Nations when its actions could affect their rights.

Carolyn Buffalo, a mother from Montana First Nation in Maskwacis, Alta., was one representative plaintiff in the class action for Jordan’s Principle families.

Jordan’s Principle is a legal rule named after Jordan River Anderson, a First Nations child born in 1999 with multiple health issues that kept him in hospital from birth. He didn’t leave the hospital until he died at the age of five, and governments couldn’t agree on who should pay for his home-based care.

Buffalo’s son, Noah, has cerebral palsy and requires continuous care. But Ottawa has been making that care difficult for him to access on reserve.

Speaking through tears at the assembly earlier Thursday, Buffalo said she thought chiefs would vote down the deal she and others have worked on for years. She said kids would be left without protection if the deal was rejected.

“I didn’t even want to come to this assembly because I knew that politically it was going to be tough,” she said.

“Do I trust the AFN? No. Do I trust the Liberal government? No, but I am a supporter of this legal process. That’s why we agreed to join and be part of it. If I thought for one second that this was going to be harmful to our people, I wouldn’t be part of this … go ahead, scuttle the agreement. But if the deal is lost, just remember what I said.”

Another representative plaintiff, Ashley Bach, was removed from her community as a child. She urged chiefs to remember that many children in care are watching the assembly, even though the topic is traumatizing for them and some conversations have been hostile.

“This is a once-in-a-childhood agreement, because if we take too long we’re going to lose another generation,” she said.

“If we wait years and years for a perfect agreement, they won’t be kids anymore. They’ll be like me.”

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 17, 2024.

Three tobacco giants would pay billions of dollars to provincial and territorial governments as well as smokers across Canada as part of a proposed deal in a corporate restructuring process set off by a legal battle over the health effects of smoking.

Here are the key numbers of the proposal, based on a court filing as well as one of the parties in the Quebec class action.

$24.725 billion: Amount to be paid to the provinces and territories.

$6 billion: The share of the amount for provinces and territories expected to be paid out at the time the deal is implemented.

$4.25 billion: Amount to be paid to the plaintiffs in two Quebec class-action lawsuits.

$2.521 billion: Amount to be paid to smokers in the rest of Canada who were diagnosed with lung cancer, throat cancer or chronic obstructive pulmonary disease between March 2015 and March 2019.

$1 billion, including a $131 million contribution from the compensation to the Quebec plaintiffs: Amount to be paid to a foundation to fight tobacco-related diseases.

$15 million: Amount to be paid to tobacco producers.

$100,000: Maximum amount available to each Quebec plaintiff who files a claim for compensation.

$60,000: Maximum amount available to smokers in the rest of Canada covered by the deal.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 17, 2024.

Note to readers: This is a corrected story. A previous version incorrectly said the companies had proposed the payments laid out in the proposed arrangement.

The Canadian Press. All rights reserved.

Three tobacco giants are proposing to pay close to $25 billion to provinces and territories and more than $4 billion to tens of thousands of Quebec smokers and their loved ones as part of a corporate restructuring process triggered by a long-running legal battle.

A proposed plan of arrangement was filed in an Ontario court Thursday after the companies — JTI-Macdonald Corp., Rothmans, Benson & Hedges and Imperial Tobacco Canada Ltd. — spent more than five years in negotiations with their creditors.

The companies sought creditor protection in Ontario in early 2019 after they lost an appeal in a landmark court battle in Quebec.

The Ontario court put all legal proceedings against the companies on hold as they tried to work out a deal with their creditors, which include the plaintiffs in two Quebec class-action lawsuits as well as provincial governments seeking to recover smoking-related health-care costs.

Under the proposed plan filed Thursday, provinces and territories would receive payments over time, with roughly $6 billion to be paid out when the deal is implemented.

The Quebec plaintiffs would file claims for compensation of up to $100,000 each.

The proposed plan also includes more than $2.5 billion for smokers in other provinces and territories who were diagnosed with lung cancer, throat cancer or chronic obstructive pulmonary disease between March 2015 and March 2019. They would be eligible for up to $60,000 each.

Bruce W. Johnston, one of the lawyers for the Quebec plaintiffs, said the proposal is “historic and unprecedented” because it allows for the compensation of smokers as well as governments.

“When we took this case, there had never been a single plaintiff who had received a single penny from a tobacco company,” he said Thursday.

“We took this case in 1998 and as a result of our case, not only will tens of thousands of victims be compensated by the tobacco industry in Canada, most of them in Quebec, but also governments are going to be sharing $24 billion.”

The plaintiffs have endured lengthy delays and now they can finally see that there’s “probably a light at the end of the tunnel and that they will receive compensation,” he said.

While many of the class-action members died before they could receive any money from the companies, their successors — and in some cases, their successors’ successors — will be eligible for compensation, he said.

The proposed deal would also see the companies pour more than $1 billion into a foundation to fight tobacco-related diseases. That amount includes $131 million taken from the money allocated to the Quebec plaintiffs.

The proposal must still go through several steps before it can be put into action, including a vote by creditors and approval by the court.

Negotiations between the companies and their creditors were confidential, so the class-action members couldn’t know how things were progressing and many didn’t understand why it was taking so long, Johnston said.

Several health-care groups argued the lack of transparency surrounding the talks would benefit the companies at the expense of other stakeholders.

As recently as last month, three groups — Action on Smoking & Health, Physicians for a Smoke-Free Canada and the Quebec Coalition for Tobacco Control — said recent court filings suggested the provinces had agreed to a process that would give the companies veto power over the final deal.

The groups have consistently urged the provinces to impose regulations and smoking-reduction measures as part of a deal with the companies.

Some organizations, including the Canadian Cancer Society, were also calling for a deal to involve the public disclosure of internal company documents.

Rob Cunningham, a lawyer for the Canadian Cancer Society, said the proposed deal is “the most significant proposed settlement in the world outside of the United States” in a case of its kind so far.

But unlike the global settlement reached with tobacco companies in the U.S. in the late 1990s, it doesn’t include policy measures aimed at reducing tobacco use or any public disclosure of documents, he said.

He said the cancer society, which has been named a social stakeholder in the case, will review the details of the roughly 1,400-page proposal and make submissions as part of the approval process.

The Quebec lawsuits involved smokers who took up the habit between 1950 and 1998 and fell ill or were addicted. Heirs of such smokers were also party to the suits.

Court filings from last year suggest hundreds of the class-action members have died since the creditor protection proceedings began.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 17, 2024.