QUESTION PERIOD — Ministry of Justice
Canada's Black Justice Strategy
May 28, 2026
Minister, it’s good to see you. You won’t be surprised to know that I am going to raise the Black Justice Strategy with you.
The amendment that I put forward to Bill C-14 just a few weeks ago, which was accepted by the Committee on Legal and Constitutional Affairs, is based squarely on one of the recommendations from that strategy.
I was heartened to see a reference to the Black Justice Strategy in a recent funding announcement: $8.6 million in funding over two years for 24 projects to support Black communities as part of advancing Canada’s Black Justice Strategy.
Can you say more about the deliverables attached to this funding and how the government prioritizes investments in that strategy?
Thank you for the question and for your continued advocacy for the implementation of the Black Justice Strategy.
Every program operates somewhat differently. I’ll place my comments in the context of this announcement, but you may be able to extrapolate based on what I’ll share.
We called for proposals and targeted certain policy areas, but tried to be flexible in terms of the proposals that we would receive because, in my view and in the view of the program, communities often know how they can best have an impact, and we didn’t want to define too narrowly what organizations could propose to do with the funding.
The Department of Justice would receive these applications and consider which partners have an opportunity and ability — preferably a proven history — to deliver on investments that the government has made. The particular announcement included a few different funds. Some were targeting the victims’ fund that was focused on trauma-informed and culturally specific supports for survivors of crime. Some of that fund was made up of the partnerships and innovation fund that was specifically around court workers and navigation services for Black Canadians as well as the Youth Justice Fund.
There was an enormous amount of interest on the back end of the delivery of these programs. We would typically engage with the recipient of the fund to understand if they have delivered a return on investment, which, of course, when you look at future iterations of a fund like that, can be a good way to establish partners to develop that history so they can prove success and potentially partner again in the future.
Thank you for that, minister.
This funding seems like progress for the Black Justice Strategy. I guess I worry that such a great strategy will get shelved and sit somewhere collecting dust. So although I am happy to hear that there is funding here, how is your office going to measure and keep track of progress around this strategy going forward?
With respect to the specific investments that you’ve drawn attention to, it’s probably too early to tell today whether they’ve had their intended impact. The programs are ongoing and rolling out.
But, on a case-by-case basis, for both programs and projects big and small, we maintain a relationship with funding recipients to understand what worked, what didn’t work and, importantly, why it did or didn’t work.
Keep in mind that, in addition to the $8.6 million that you referenced, the Fall Economic Statement of 2024, which is the source of those funds, included an investment starting this fiscal year of, I believe, in excess of $87 million. We’re going to have to follow up on each of the program recipients to understand whether the program delivery, in fact, had the intended result —
Thank you, minister.
