The minister responsible for Jordan’s Principle and Inuit Child First Initiative funding says she needs time to work with Indigenous leaders but expects to present changes in the fall budget.
Jordan’s Principle and Inuit CFI exist to ensure Indigenous children receive important services.
However, changes made by the Trudeau government earlier this year have had some major consequences in the North.
Schools across the NWT have laid off dozens of educational assistants after being unable to renew Jordan’s Principle funding to pay for them. Some schools said Ottawa had rejected their applications as they aren’t on reserves, even though only one of the territory’s 49 schools is reserve-based. (Only two reserves exist in the NWT.)
Separately, the Inuvialuit Regional Corporation has said it is ending a grocery subsidy worth up to $500 a month because of changes to Inuit CFI.
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Speaking with Cabin Radio on Thursday, Indigenous services minister Mandy Gull-Masty said she needed time to consult with Indigenous leaders about how Jordan’s Principle and Inuit CFI can be improved.
“My intention is to speak to both Jordan’s Principle and the Inuit Child First Initiative over the summer, and in discussion with both Indigenous leadership and Inuit leadership, because it’s really important that I’m able to receive their input, their direction,” she said. “Whatever measures we put in place to make changes from these programs, it has to be in collaboration with them.”
Asked if she intended to present a new vision for the funding programs in the fall budget – which will be Prime Minister Mark Carney’s first – Gull-Masty said yes.
“This is a really critical discussion. It is responding to what leadership are asking me to do to ensure I am reflecting a program that is meeting the needs of the children being serviced by it, but also really reflecting what this government is trying to do – be more efficient, be more effective in the way it’s designing and implementing programs, services, procedures, operations,” the minister said.
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“Ensuring that you’re working with the intricacies and reality of territories is a really important part to how we design our budget.”
Ottawa’s ‘confusing’ approach
Acknowledging that reality of how territories work is vital, Premier RJ Simpson said this week.
Speaking in Fort Smith as the prime minister visited the community, Simpson said changes made to Jordan’s Principle earlier this year appeared to be blind to how the NWT actually works.
February’s Jordan’s Principle changes – such as tying school funding to reserve status – were so surprising to some of the territory’s ministers that they openly questioned whether Indigenous Services Canada even realized the NWT has only two reserves.
“The big thing I want to see here is an understanding that we have provinces and we have territories. They’re not necessarily the same thing,” Simpson told Cabin Radio.
“If you look at what’s happened with Jordan’s Principle, reserves are being treated one way, provinces and territories another way. Requests made by school boards on a reserve are acceptable, but in the provinces and the territories, those requests are going to be redirected to the territorial and provincial government.
“In the Northwest Territories, we have 27 communities that are almost entirely Indigenous. And so why we’re being treated like a province is a little confusing to me. There’s instances where perhaps we need a different approach, a third approach, and that goes not just for Jordan’s Principle but for a lot of things the federal government rolls out.”
The new school year is just weeks away. Gull-Masty – who was not the minister responsible at the time of the February changes – said she understands the urgency of the situation but “that doesn’t mean that I’m going to rush to try to find solutions.”
“I’m going to take the time necessary to do it properly with leadership and to have a really thorough dialogue,” she said.
“I know that the school year is approaching quickly. It is not far from the forefront of my mind, but I have to make sure I am really reflecting something that is conducive to the needs of children in schools.”
