Indigenous Child Welfare in Canada

A Neoliberal and Settler Colonial Perpetuation of Residential Schools

Abstract

This paper is primarily a case study of the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal case Caring Society v Canada and seeks to accomplish three things. First, create a theoretical foundation built upon historic instances of discriminatory/assimilationist policies based upon theoretical understandings of social reproduction, biopolitics, and neoliberalism. Second, to situate Caring Society within said theoretical framework for the purpose of determining the context in which it occurs and the role of the case's context in producing discriminatory/assimilationist policy. Third is the application of both the theoretical framework as well as Caring Society to determine how the Canadian state engages in nation building through processes of othering and framing Indigenous peoples as a foreign threat to the security of the Canadian identity. In doing so, I not only argue that Indigenous child welfare is the perpetuation of residential schools, but that it systematically breaks down Indigenous children and Indigenous communities in response to their perceived threat through processes of othering and nation-building.