On March 30, the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal approved an $8.5-billion agreement giving 133 Ontario First Nations the authority to design and lead their own child welfare systems. It is the largest Indigenous child welfare deal in Canadian history. And in Manitoba — where 91 per cent of the 9,172 children in care are Indigenous — people are paying very close attention.
The Ontario Final Agreement is the first regional deal to emerge after First Nations chiefs rejected a $47.8-billion national settlement last year. It funds prevention, community-designed services, post-majority supports for youth aging out of care, and capital infrastructure — all shaped by the communities themselves. The Carney government has since offered a $35.5-billion framework for similar regional agreements across the country, with annual funding of $4.4 billion starting in 2033–34.
Seventeen Manitoba First Nations are now pursuing their own coordination agreements under Bill C-92, the federal law that affirms Indigenous jurisdiction over child and family services. But Manitoba’s path is more complicated than Ontario’s — and the one community that’s already tried it has a story worth hearing.
What Ontario’s Deal Actually Includes
The $8.5 billion over nine years covers what provincial systems have historically underfunded or ignored entirely: prevention services that keep families together, culturally grounded programming, representative services for children in non-Indigenous placements, and — critically — supports for young people who age out of care.
That last piece matters. Across Canada, youth who age out of care at 18 or 21 face some of the steepest cliffs in the social safety net. Ontario’s deal explicitly funds the transition period — the months and years after a young person leaves the system — recognizing that jurisdiction means nothing if the support disappears the moment someone turns a certain age.
The deal also funds capital projects: buildings, offices, the physical infrastructure that community-led agencies need to actually operate. According to the federal government’s announcement, the agreement was designed by Ontario First Nations themselves — not imposed by Ottawa.
Manitoba’s Numbers Are Going the Wrong Direction
Manitoba has 9,172 children and youth in care as of the 2024–25 fiscal year. That’s a three per cent increase from the previous year — the first rise since 2016–17. Indigenous children now make up 91 per cent of that total, up from 87 per cent a decade ago.
Those numbers sit behind everything else in this story. Manitoba has the highest per-capita rate of Indigenous children in care in the country. The system isn’t shrinking. It’s growing. And the proportion of Indigenous children within it is growing faster.
The Southern Chiefs’ Organization, which represents First Nations in southern Manitoba, said in February that the province’s single-envelope CFS funding model has not kept pace with the growing complexity of needs on the ground. Indigenous children, the SCO said, are being “underserved and discarded.” Meanwhile, the Assembly of Manitoba Chiefs is in court holding both Manitoba and Canada accountable for collective harms from decades of child welfare system failures.
This is the context in which Manitoba’s 17 First Nations are sitting down to negotiate their own agreements. The need is enormous. The existing system is failing. And the one community that went first has produced a contested result.
The Peguis Question
Peguis First Nation, about 150 kilometres north of Winnipeg, signed Manitoba’s first Bill C-92 coordination agreement in January 2023, backed by a $319-million federal commitment. It was celebrated as a landmark — proof that Indigenous child welfare jurisdiction could work in Manitoba.
Two years later, the community’s current chief is calling it a failure. Chief Stan Bird told CBC News that the agreement lacks oversight, that children have been turned away from services, and that the deal should be ended. The former chief, who negotiated the agreement, disagrees.
The dispute at Peguis isn’t evidence that jurisdiction transfer doesn’t work. It’s evidence that jurisdiction transfer without strong accountability structures, adequate capacity, and community oversight can go wrong. There’s a difference — and it’s a critical one for the 17 communities now at the table.
Ontario’s deal appears to have built in some of what Peguis lacked: community-designed governance, prevention-first funding, and the capital investment needed to stand up new agencies. Whether Manitoba’s future agreements will learn from both models remains an open question.
What Self-Determination Actually Requires
In May 2024, Manitoba and First Nation chiefs signed a declaration committing to the jurisdictional transfer of child welfare to First Nations. Nationally, 86 Indigenous governing bodies have filed notices to exercise jurisdiction under Bill C-92, and 39 have formally requested coordination agreements.
The momentum is real. But so are the practical challenges. Transferring jurisdiction means transferring responsibility — for staffing, for facilities, for service delivery, for the hardest decisions a community can make about its children. Without transferring the resources and capacity to match, jurisdiction becomes a label, not a solution.
Ontario’s $8.5 billion is significant not just for its size but for what it funds. Prevention. Infrastructure. Post-majority supports. Training. These are the things that turn legal authority into functioning services. Manitoba’s communities will need the same.
The prevention work already happening in Manitoba — programs that kept 480 families together last year — shows what’s possible when resources are directed at keeping children with their families instead of removing them. But prevention programming at scale requires sustained funding, not one-time commitments.
What Comes Next
The Ontario deal sets a precedent. It proves that large-scale, tribunal-approved jurisdiction transfer is possible — 133 communities, $8.5 billion, a framework designed by the people it serves. For Manitoba’s 17 First Nations, the question is no longer whether this can be done. It’s whether it will be done well.
That means learning from Ontario’s strengths: prevention-first funding, community governance, post-majority supports. It means learning from Peguis’s experience: the need for oversight, accountability, and the infrastructure to actually deliver services. And it means confronting Manitoba’s numbers honestly — 9,172 children in care, 91 per cent Indigenous, and rising.
For young people aging out of Manitoba’s child welfare system right now, these negotiations are not abstract. They’re about whether the next generation will have culturally grounded supports during the most vulnerable transition of their lives — or whether they’ll walk out the same way hundreds before them have, with a plan that expires on a birthday.
Programs like New Steps exist on Treaty 1 Territory because the current system doesn’t catch everyone. Until jurisdiction transfer delivers what it promises — real resources, real accountability, real self-determination — the work happens one young person at a time. If you or someone you know is navigating this transition, support is available.
