QUESTION PERIOD — Ministry of Justice
Mi’kmaw Legal Support Network
November 19, 2025
Welcome, minister. As you are from Nova Scotia and given your work as Minister of Justice, I believe you may be familiar with the work of the Mi’kmaw Legal Support Network, or MLSN, which provides legal services and support to Mi’kmaq who encounter the justice system. It is a critical service, given the overrepresentation of Indigenous people in the justice system. Their ability to offer culturally sensitive support in the Mi’kmaw language has been invaluable to those who have used their services.
Successive evaluations of MLSN have all pointed to the critical issue of core and long-term sustainable funding. This remains a pressing issue.
Minister, since the fiduciary responsibility for First Nations falls within federal jurisdiction, will your government commit to stable, long-term funding for this vital service?
Thank you, senator, for the important question.
I am familiar with the work of the organization that you have referred to. I, of course, do not have funding announcements to make today on the floor of the Senate, as you can appreciate.
Philosophically, we need to understand that rules written on paper without systems and without people who work within those systems would not be worth the paper on which our laws are written.
We need to understand how we can deploy resources to ensure that the voices of those who have too often been ignored and not properly included in this process find representation to take their voices to the systems meant to serve them and that too often work against their interests.
To the extent there are unique opportunities to work with the organization you have referenced or others, know we very much value the feedback on where a finite level of public resources can be deployed to have maximum impact. This is a conversation I would be happy to carry on offline, perhaps when we are both back home in Nova Scotia.
