{"id":21787,"date":"2020-11-18T18:29:39","date_gmt":"2020-11-18T23:29:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/?p=21787"},"modified":"2020-11-28T13:23:12","modified_gmt":"2020-11-28T18:23:12","slug":"rachel-blaney-appointed-ndp-deputy-critic-for-crown-indigenous-relations","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/rachel-blaney-appointed-ndp-deputy-critic-for-crown-indigenous-relations\/","title":{"rendered":"Rachel Blaney appointed NDP Deputy Critic for Crown Indigenous relations"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Roy L Hales<\/em><\/p>\n

Our local Member of Parliament,\u00a0Rachel Blaney<\/a>, was appointed the NDP\u00a0Deputy\u00a0Critic for Crown-Indigenous Relations\u00a0<\/a>and Indigenous Services.<\/p>\n

Growing up in an Indigenous family<\/h2>\n

In a recent interview, she said, \u201cOne on the things that people don\u2019t know about me, is that I grew up in an indigenous family. My mother was a single mother and when I was two she met my dad. They got married and he legally adopted me when I was four. He\u2019s from\u00a0Stellat\u2019en First Nation<\/a>, which I always call Stellako,\u00a0and is in the centre of British Columbia. A lot of my knowledge comes from growing up in one of these communities and it wasn\u2019t until my parents got divorced that I found out I was adopted.\u201d<\/p>\n

She added, \u201cI was quite concerned when I found I wasn\u2019t as indigenous as I thought I was \u2013 although I was the only sibling with blond hair and blue eyes. I\u2019m not sure how I didn\u2019t notice, but I didn\u2019t.\u201d<\/p>\n

Indigenous connections<\/h2>\n

Blaney still has strong connections to her adopted family in Stellako. One of her aunts is a hereditary chief.<\/p>\n

Her husband,\u00a0Darren Blaney<\/a>, is the elected chief of the\u00a0Homalco Nation<\/a>\u00a0and her children are also from Homathko.<\/p>\n

Some of her relations by marriage are\u00a0Klahoose<\/a>\u00a0and live on\u00a0Cortes Island<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think that\u2019s why, when we [recently] came to an event they made me dance the squirrel dance. I was actually the first one called to the floor,\u201d she laughed. \u201cI was like, \u2018thank you.\u2019<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd they were like, \u2018we\u2019re filming it\u2019, so it is somewhere out there in the world.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Rachel<\/a>

Question Period \/ P\u00e9riode des questions 25 Sept Ottawa, Ontario, on 25 September, 2020. \u00a9 HOC-CDCCredit: Christian Diotte, House of Commons Photo Services<\/p><\/div>\n

Appointment as Deputy Critic<\/h2>\n

Blaney said\u00a0NDP party<\/a>\u00a0leader\u00a0Jagmeet Singh\u00a0<\/a>is passionate about the issues that indigenous communities across Canada are facing.<\/p>\n

So after the last election, he assumed the role as the principal party spokesperson for these concerns.<\/p>\n

She added, \u201cHe made the decision, after the last election, to take on the role of the\u00a0 main spokesperson on these issues. He has asked me to be the Deputy because he is the leader and it is good to have a couple of people on the file. That means I would be very working very closely with the leader on both of those important departments and ministries to address concerns that Indigenous communities and people are bringing to us.\u201d<\/p>\n

When her appointment was announced, Singh said, \u201cRachel has proven that she is a strong ally for Indigenous people across the country and I have every faith that she will continue to work hard to push the government into making significant improvements in the lives of Indigenous people.\u201d<\/p>\n

Blaney explained, \u201cI think what he sees reflected in the work I\u2019ve done is a lot of connections with Indigenous communities across the [North Island-Powell River] riding. We have over twenty communities and a fairly significant urban population. He has seen the work that have done in building those relationships up.\u201d<\/p>\n

Vice Chair of the Indigenous and Northern Affairs Committee<\/h2>\n

Blaney\u2019s recent term as Vice Chair of the\u00a0Indigenous and Northern Affairs Committee<\/a>\u00a0brought her into contact with communities across Canada.<\/p>\n

\u201cProbably the most important [project] that we worked on was worked the legislation that was brought forward towards the end of parliament: Bill C92 \u2013 that talked about\u00a0 \u201cthat talks about a framework for indigenous communities to take back the power and capacity to address indigenous children in care.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are more Indigenous children in care now than at the height of the residential system. There is obviously something wrong. When you see that many children in care, you know there is something broken in the system as well as in some of these families.\u201d<\/p>\n

While Blaney is proud of the work that the committee did, she feels the resulting legislation falls short.<\/p>\n

\u201cUnfortunately, after a lot of hard work and a lot of support from stakeholders, we did not get the government to change that. There were some changes that we did get them to do, but that fundamental one \u2013 not putting a dollar figure in the legislation, but making sure that there was something about equitable funding \u2013 would have made that legislation so much stronger.\u201d<\/p>\n

The situation today<\/h2>\n

\u201cAs of today, I believe Canada has been served with eight non-compliance orders. They found that Indigenous children are getting less money invested in them; less support for foster parents, especially \u2018on reserve foster parents.\u2019 Not enough in supporting families that the children can stay. They were identifying that some children were being taken because\u00a0 their housing was not called \u2018good enough\u2019 \u2013 and that was of no fault to the community members, who were living in housing the community provided. We had communities that lived in more remote areas that talked about the challenges when children were often taken so far away that there is no ability for them to be in contact in a meaningful way with any of the family. And there is no problem solving around any of those issues.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Roy L Hales Our local Member of Parliament,\u00a0Rachel Blaney, was appointed the NDP\u00a0Deputy\u00a0Critic for Crown-Indigenous Relations\u00a0and Indigenous Services. Growing up in an Indigenous family In a recent interview, she said, \u201cOne on the things that people don\u2019t know about me, is that I grew up in an indigenous family. My mother was a single…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":34,"featured_media":21792,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[225],"tags":[3288,1628],"radio":[252],"origine":[280,266,231],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21787"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/34"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21787"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21787\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/21792"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21787"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21787"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21787"},{"taxonomy":"radio","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/radio?post=21787"},{"taxonomy":"origine","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/origine?post=21787"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}