After Blackstock’s organization filed a discrimination complaint against Indian and Northern Affairs Canada, she was excluded from important meetings, and claims that her professional and personal life was systematically monitored by government employees.

In February 2007, Blackstock’s organization filed a discrimination complaint with the Canadian Human Rights Commission against Indian and Northern Affairs Canada (INAC) - now called Aboriginal Affairs and Northern Development Canada.

The complaint alleged that INAC funding for Aboriginal family services at the federal level is significantly less than funding for off-reserve children who receive the same services from provincial governments. In October 2008, the Commission referred this complaint to the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal for a hearing.

Exclusion

Blackstock alleges that, between 2008 and 2009, INAC barred her from meetings between INAC and other Aboriginal leaders. The Society saw this exclusion as a reaction to the Society’s human rights complaint.

In January 2010, the Society asked the Tribunal for permission to amend its complaint to include allegations of further discriminatory treatment by INAC, relating to Blackstock’s exclusion from these meetings. The Society argued that INAC had treated the Society in an adverse and prejudicial manner, and that this treatment constituted an act of retaliation against the Society.

Systematic monitoring

Having been barred from meetings, sensing animosity from INAC, Blackstock wondered if there would be other retaliation arising from her complaint about the way Aboriginal children are being treated. So she filed an Access to Information request to see what information the government had gathered about her between June 2009 and June 2011.

Blackstock received the requested documents in November 2011, and says they indicate that INAC was systematically monitoring both her professional and her private life.

INAC allegedly collected Blackstock’s personal information from her personal Facebook page and from her Status Indian file, which includes information about her family.

INAC also allegedly assigned several federal officials to follow Blackstock in her professional activities, attending 75 to 100 of her public speaking engagements on the state of Aboriginal children’s rights in Canada.

According to Blackstock, the internal reports about her activities, produced by INAC officials and circulated within the Department, sometimes employed a mocking tone.

Blackstock also alleges that the products of these surveillance activities were shared with the Department of Justice legal team, charged with defending INAC in the Society’s discrimination complaint.

INAC has refused to comment specifically on Blackstock’s Access to Information documents except to say that it “routinely monitors and analyses the public environment as it relates to the department’s policies programs, services and initiatives. This is done to do a better job in service delivery and policy’’ and that “social media sites such as Facebook and Twitter are public forums, accessible to all.”

On national radio, Blackstock asked Canadians to question which policies and services have been improved by INAC’s systematic monitoring of her public and private activities, and why such a large investment was put into monitoring a citizen with no criminal record, whose single goal is to help secure the fair treatment of Aboriginal children.

Relevant Dates

• February 2007: Blackstock’s organization files a discrimination complaint with the Canadian Human Rights Commission against Indian and Northern Affairs Canada (INAC).
• October 2008: The Commission refers the complaint to the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal for a hearing.
• 2008-2009: Blackstock is barred from meetings she would previously have been able to attend.
• November 2011: Blackstock recieves the Access to Information documents about her. They are more than six inches thick, and show close surveillance of Blackstock's private and professional life by government employees.

Note: For more detailed information on the legal case itself, click here.