I'll take a quick shot at it.
Article 3 of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child says best interests are paramount. There is a general comment on indigenous children.
The challenge with best interests in Canada is that it's been used as a weapon against indigenous families, with all those terrible attitudes about indigenous families, just as residential schools were used. That's why the Truth and Reconciliation Commission said, in its legacy, do this work that's before you today. “Best interests of the child” is a very challenging thing, but there are new concepts, a new, I would call, interpretive lens brought to it in this bill, which is very helpful.
There is one issue, and I concur with what the Assembly of First Nations has presented and with what the B.C. chiefs presented earlier. I think a small clarification on best interests is that when there are indigenous laws in place, the best interests harmonize with that, too. We have to be very careful. There's a small change, I think, we could make, if needed. If it's not made, I still feel as if we've reset the best interests of the child. The best interests of the child is no longer going to be seen in isolation from their family, their community, their nation and their culture. That's a huge advance. This will be the most progressive child welfare legislation in the G7 for children from indigenous backgrounds. This is a pretty major shift.
Will it, on the ground, be interpreted in this progressive way on the first day? No, it won't. The child welfare system is hard to change. I've been in it. There are times when we have to literally go to court to say, “Excuse me, you forgot that this child is an indigenous child and actually has a community. We want standing.” We have to fight sometimes.
It's not going to change overnight. The culture.... It's going to take a lot of work by a lot of people but at least get the shift going in the right direction. Then those of us on the ground and the young people coming forward will take those tools, and I think they will work with them. They're very capable of doing that.