Court of Appeal Affirms Human Rights Protections for Indigenous Families in the Child Welfare System

On May 8, 2025, the Court of Appeal for British Columbia released its decision in R.R. v. Vancouver Aboriginal Child and Family Services Society. The pivotal decision restores a Human Rights Tribunal ruling that R.R., an Afro-Indigenous mother, was discriminated against by a child welfare agency that removed her children and limited her access to them for over two years. 

The decision affirms the Human Rights Tribunal’s jurisdiction to decide discrimination complaints arising in the child welfare context. It makes clear that stereotypes about Indigenous parents have no place in determining a child’s best interests:

[25]      By inserting itself into the intimate relationship between parent and child, the state takes on the responsibility of doing so without discrimination. Racial or other stereotypes have no place in decisions to intervene. Relying on stereotypes in such decisions, far from being in the best interests of the child, is in the best interests of no one. If our shared history has taught us anything, it has taught us this.

Robin Gage and Emma Ronsley of Arvay Finlay LLP acted as pro bono counsel to West Coast LEAF, who intervened in the appeal to situate the issues before the court within their broader social and historical context – including past and ongoing systemic discrimination against Indigenous families in the child welfare system. The Court of Appeal agreed that the Human Rights Tribunal was correct to consider this contextual evidence:

[155]   The contextual evidence did not distract the Member. Rather, it helped her to identify interventions where prejudice was a factor. It also helped her understand how RR’s distrust of the child welfare system, and her particular needs in relation to that system, stemmed from her and her community’s traumatic history with both residential schools and the child welfare system: BCHRT Decision at paras. 363–364.

 

Read the full decision here: R.R. v. Vancouver Aboriginal Child and Family Services Society, 2025 BCCA 151

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