July 25, 2022
SHARE
CANADALAND
#800 Cindy Blackstock’s Long Game
Cindy Blackstock was always aware that Indigenous children in Canada were treated differently, that their mistreatment and deaths were accepted as the status quo. This is the story of what she did about it.
Jesse Brown
Host & Publisher
Sarah Lawrynuik
Senior Producer
Danielle Paradis
Tristan Capacchione
Producer
Kieran Oudshoorn
Managing Editor, Podcasts

So many people encounter injustice and accept it as the way things are. Others refuse to accept the status quo and will not rest until those injustices are done away with. Cindy Blackstock is one of the latter. This is the story of how her work resulted in the largest financial compensation settlement the Canadian government has ever made because of the systemic neglect of First Nations’ children in the child welfare system over the course of decades. A report from Danielle Paradis.

Featured in this episode: Cindy Blackstock, executive director of the First Nations Child and Family Caring Society of Canada; Alanis Obomsawin, documentarian.

Further reading:

Support Canadaland at canadaland.com/join

Sponsors: Douglas, CFUV, Freshbooks, Hover

Additional Music is by Audio Network

More from this series
“Public dollars require public accountability, and every publisher in this country should want that.” -David Skok
October 12, 2026
“What’s my crime? Journalism? … I get that I piss off a lot of people with my articles.” -David Pugliese
October 5, 2026
 ”These are a group of white men coming to our area saying, "We bring you the gift of nuclear waste.” - Dennis
October 1, 2026
You can't really call Regina a news desert. They still have a newspaper. But if you actually look under the hood you’ll discover that they stopped printing the newspaper in Regina. They stopped editing it in Regina. The editor lives somewhere else. And as far the CBC goes, well, that acronym is now synonymous with layoffs. 
September 28, 2026
1438
I f you don't like what you're hearing, it's because it doesn't agree with your worldview, but you're interviewing an expert, and I'm giving you my expert analysis. -Dr. Peter McCullough
September 21, 2026
 We can surveil you. We can also perhaps even influence you, change the way that the game interacts with you in a way that might kind of subconsciously impact your understanding of the world. - Dr. Vinita Singh, associate professor of law, University of Minnesota
September 14, 2026
“ If they wanna draw Garfield and expose his  genitals,  you know, that's up to the fans.” -Nathen Mazri
September 7, 2026
“Everything changed when I treated it like a 9-5.”
September 3, 2026
all podcasts arrow All Podcasts
CANADALAND