QUESTION PERIOD — Indigenous Services
Auditor General's Report
October 28, 2025
Thank you for coming here today to meet with us, minister.
Last week, the Auditor General tabled a report outlining that Indigenous Services Canada made unsatisfactory progress in implementing 53% of its recommendations from previous audits over the last decade to improve programs and services. This is despite an 84% increase in funding since 2019.
The Office of the Auditor General, or OAG, found four barriers, two of which are a “lack of sustained management attention” and a “passive and siloed approach to supporting First Nations.”
How do you plan to address the barriers the Auditor General identified in her report?
Thank you for the question.
I welcomed the Auditor General’s report. I think that 53% shows there is a pathway that needs improvement. I also want to point out that the areas of success in the report were the areas on which we worked closely in co-development with our partnerships.
In terms of nursing, this is a nationwide situation where we are seeing a critical lack for nursing. I believe, first, that investment into education to ensure there are more Indigenous nurses is important. The report references 100 nurses who came on board to offer that service. My primary goal is to ensure they receive that service in the community.
One of my priority objectives is to introduce virtual health service delivery where individuals do not have to participate in medical travel; they can receive it from people they know. I hope it will be in their language. I hope they are also going to ensure that prevention and follow-up aftercare are delivered in community.
The government is working to lift those barriers of recognition for credentials both for the people in Canada and for those new Canadians coming in. They have a part to play in immediate response. In the long term, that critical investment into education is the component that is going to offer the quality service we need to give First Nations by First Nations.
As a follow-up, the same report states:
Although an action plan was developed, we found that the department had not made satisfactory progress in implementing any of our 5 recommendations to ensure that First Nations communities had ongoing access to safe drinking water . . . .
Can you describe how you will address this?
We are ensuring we’re supporting communities where they are, removing the barriers for innovation, listening in a culturally based approach to what they’re looking for to ensure they are advancing the situations in community, improving on service. We’re ensuring that if there is a community that is not in a place to respond to the situation they are in, we incorporate building capacity for them, looking at a multi-faceted approach to support them to get them where they are. That, for me, is one of the biggest take-aways in all of the files — that partnership is critical.
