QUESTION PERIOD — Ministry of Crown-Indigenous Relations and Northern Affairs
Indigenous Health
November 26, 2024
Thank you, minister. Your mandate letter specifies that you continue to lead and coordinate the work required of all ministers to accelerate the implementation of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s Calls to Action. Call to Action 18 calls upon the federal, provincial, territorial and Aboriginal governments:
. . . to acknowledge that the current state of Aboriginal health in Canada is a direct result of previous Canadian government policies . . . and to recognize and implement the health-care rights of Aboriginal people as identified in international law, constitutional law, and under the Treaties.
Since then, the federal government has committed to support Indigenous self-determination over health, including distinctions-based Indigenous health legislation. Despite information being shared with First Nations in Manitoba earlier this year, nothing further has come forward, and the bill is supposed to be tabled this winter.
Minister, where is the long-promised Indigenous health legislation?
Thank you, senator. It’s a very important question. I want to just confirm that this is part of Minister Hajdu’s mandate, and I will express your sentiments and your concerns to her.
The Assembly of Manitoba Chiefs is recommending transformation of funding relations between Canada and First Nations in Manitoba stating that Canada must dismantle colonial approaches and work with First Nations on a nation-to-nation basis.
For Indigenous self-determination in health, the federal government has acknowledged that current funding models and arrangements are viewed as colonial, paternalistic and burdensome.
Minister, when will the federal government meaningfully reimagine funding relations given that fiscal self-determination is considered a necessary start to a renewed relationship between Canada and First Nations?
Thank you, senator. I won’t be able to address the health aspect of it, but let me speak broadly in terms of funding and how we have evolved in terms of how funding is allocated.
First, it is a more predictable, longer-term model than one-off funding. That is something we have done from the outset, including funding for national Indigenous organizations, for example, which are crucial, including supports for regional components of those organizations. That is work we have done to decolonize.
There is still a long way to go, but there is a difference in the way we think and act with respect to funding.
