Did Indigenous Services Canada know the NWT has almost no reserves?

The Northwest Territories has more than 30 communities. Only two of them have any connection to a First Nation reserve.

Almost all of the 45,000 or so residents in the NWT – about half of whom are Indigenous – live off-reserve. Only the Kátł’odeeche First Nation (about 265 people) and Salt River First Nation (nine members registered on-reserve) have reserves within the territory.

Some northern leaders question whether Indigenous Services Canada knew any of that when it made major changes to Jordan’s Principle earlier this year – changes that look to be resulting in dozens of the territory’s educational assistants losing their jobs.

In multiple responses to Cabin Radio over the course of a week, Indigenous Services Canada sometimes appeared not to fully grasp the situation. At times, the agency issued statements that could be interpreted to contradict each other.

Large amounts of funding and dozens of jobs are at stake, as are classroom supports that advocates say are vital for Indigenous students.

Jordan’s Principle is a funding program designed to make sure First Nations children have equitable access to services, including education.

Schools in the NWT have used Jordan’s Principle funding for years to provide classroom supports like educational assistants. In 2024-25, the territory’s Department of Education, Culture and Employment estimates about 205 school positions in the NWT were funded through Jordan’s Principle.

In February, Indigenous Services Canada changed the rules that govern how $1.8 billion in annual funding can be accessed nationwide.

At the time, and in repeated statements since, the agency – also known as ISC – said the new approach meant “funding for school-related requests will only be approved if the requests can be clearly linked to the specific health, social or educational need of the First Nation child or if it is required to achieve substantive equality. Each request is reviewed carefully on a case-by-case basis.”

The practical impact of the change has been that various NWT schools say they were either denied funding for the coming academic year or simply never heard back.

Yellowknife’s YK1 school district, for example, told 79 educational assistants they will be out of a job at the end of August. The district said it had received no reply from Jordan’s Principle when it tried to renew funding.

Yellowknife, where many students are Indigenous but the majority are non-Indigenous, is only one example. Other communities like Łútsël K’é – where the school population is almost entirely Indigenous – have also lost multiple positions according to elected officials.

ISC has not explained why individual funding requests from schools were not approved. As a result, it remains theoretically possible that these schools were denied as they failed to clearly link their applications to the educational needs of First Nations children.

But it’s also possible that the schools were disqualified for another reason: they are off-reserve.

Supports, requests, and a bid for clarity

There is only one on-reserve school in the territory: the Kátł’odeeche First Nation’s Chief Sunrise Education Centre. The other schools, of which there are more than 40, are all off-reserve.

ISC told Cabin Radio that under the new approach, “supports to school boards off-reserve and private schools will be redirected to territorial school boards, or other existing territorial and federally funded programs.”

When Cabin Radio received this response on June 13, we understood it to mean that Jordan’s Principle supports previously offered to off-reserve schools would be redirected so the same money flows through territorial school boards or other programs instead. (We will come back to this. Things will change lower down the article.)

Confused, we wrote back to ask ISC what it thinks the difference is between an off-reserve school board and a territorial school board.

After we sought clarification, ISC simply restated that “supports to school boards off-reserve and private schools will be redirected to provincial school boards, or other existing provincial and federally funded programs. This also applies to territorial school boards. Hope that clarifies things!”

It did not, so we asked ISC directly: “Is ISC saying that all the same money schools are losing is just going to go back to the same school boards through some other route?”

ISC took six days to respond.

When it did respond, after a further nudge from Cabin Radio, ISC changed an important part of a sentence.

First, ISC wrote: “For schools that are not on reserve, education funding is the responsibility of the provincial or territorial government. In the case of the Northwest Territories, given that there are no schools on reserve, all education funding is provided by the territorial government.”

ISC’s statement in that paragraph is incorrect. The NWT does have one school on reserve.

ISC then made a crucial change of wording by asserting: “As a result, requests for educational supports for school boards off-reserve and private schools will be redirected to territorial school boards, or other existing territorial and federally funded programs.”

On two previous occasions, ISC told us “supports” for off-reserve schools would be redirected. In this statement, ISC says “requests” will be redirected.

Supports being redirected to territorial school boards or other programs could be interpreted to mean Jordan’s Principle cash is being sent to those places for distribution to students who need it.

Requests being redirected sounds more like students (and schools) looking for help will be sent to the school boards and other programs, rather than being helped by Jordan’s Principle.

Which one of these outcomes ISC actually meant remains unclear.

The agency said families can still request help from Jordan’s Principle directly if they think their child is eligible.

‘Did you not know that?’

NWT ministers have described challenges of their own in dealing with ISC on the issue.

“What was frustrating is the lack of understanding,” said Caroline Wawzonek, the NWT’s finance minister, during an appearance at Inuvik’s Arctic Development Expo on Thursday.

“Some of the changes they made were such that if you were on a reserve school, you could continue to have schools or school districts applying directly for funding. Well, of course, there’s not a lot of reserves in the Northwest Territories, and only one of the two of them has a school,” Wawzonek said.

“I think there was this real sense where all three territories sort-of went: ‘Did you not know that?’ And I actually do think there may have been an oversight.”

Premier RJ Simpson, Wawzonek, education minister Caitlin Cleveland and health minister Lesa Semmler all say they have met with federal counterparts about this issue – and others – in recent weeks.

“I’m not in the room when the federal government makes their changes, but I am hoping that the message is heard,” said Wawzonek.

Asked directly to confirm that ISC now understands the education picture in the Northwest Territories, and asked to provide a plain-English explanation of its approach in the context of the territory’s education system, ISC said on Thursday its existing statements would suffice.