Eagle Lake elder in second month of hunger strike is doing well, chief says

The chief of Eagle Lake First Nation says a member of his community is still doing well, despite having entered the second month of a hunger strike that the woman says is a protest against oppression in the child welfare system.

The woman launched the hunger strike on Oct. 9 after a child welfare agency denied her a visit with her great grandchildren on the Thanksgiving weekend.

CBC News is not naming the woman in order to comply with provincial regulations that prohibit the public identification of children in the child welfare system.

She believes the child welfare agency is denying her visitation based on a conflict between Anishinaabe and non-Indigenous ways of parenting, she told CBC in mid October.

"The rights of my great-grandchildren are being violated, as well as my own, by this oppressive brown agency that's run by non-Native policies, white policies," the woman said at the time. "Our agency has proven time and time again that it has broken families rather than repatriated families."

The woman is still doing well, Eagle Lake chief Arnold Gardner said Thursday, but he is worried about her.

Chief and council will hold a meeting with legal advisors Friday to look at starting their own child welfare agency in the community, he said.