Petition seeks permanent funding for residential school support programs

An NDP MP and residential school survivors are calling on the federal government to permanently fund programs that help communities deal with the fallout of residential schools through research and healing support.

“I’m still doing healing, and … it’s not easy to work on the trauma that happened at the school,” Christina Kitchekesik, a 75-year-old survivor of residential school, said at a press conference in Ottawa.

“That’s why I’m here and ask the government to keep the funding going,” Kitchekesik said. “There’s a lot of our survivors that haven’t even started their healing, and it’s not easy because we’re so used to keeping all the secrets and all our emotions inside.”

A parliamentary petition, sponsored by NDP MP Leah Gazan, calls on Canada to implement statutory funding for the Residential Schools Missing Children Community Support Fund. The program helps Indigenous nations and communities to locate unmarked burial sites, search for missing children, and conduct archival research. 

Between June 2021 and April 2026, just under $9.7 million from the program was awarded to recipients in the NWT such as the Łı́ı́dlı̨ı̨ Kų́ę́ First Nation, Deninu Kųę́ First Nation, Inuvialuit Regional Corporation, Tłı̨chǫ Government and NWT Métis Nation.

The federal government told Cabin Radio it had assigned $104 million in new funding earlier this year to renew the support fund for two more years.

The petition sponsored by Gazan goes further, calling for federal funding for survivor healing and cultural supports to be permanently funded rather than supported through programs that expire.

The federal government has to respond to petitions in 45 days or, if the House of Commons isn’t sitting, it must respond on the next sitting day.

“Our people are still healing, some of our people haven’t even started, and so this is not a good time to be cutting funding to programs,” said Kathy Pompana, assistant executive director at the Anish Healing Centre in Winnipeg. 

Her organization started the petition, which Gazan then tabled in the House of Commons.

Pompana said the Indian Residential School Resolution Health Support Program has long fought for more financial certainty, adding important federal funding streams are set to end on March 31, 2028.

“We keep being extended by one year, one year, one year, and so every April it comes around, we get a few more grey hairs because we don’t know if we’re going to have to let our staff go, we don’t know if we’re going to have to get rid of everything in our office and find somewhere else to work,” Pompana said.

“We’re just getting started with our healing and cutting this funding to these programs is going to be detrimental.”

‘Reconciliation is not an event’

Paul Andrew, a former Sahtu chief who was a prominent CBC North broadcaster for decades, is a co-founder of We Always Remember, a group dedicated to recognizing the legacy of residential schools in the North.

Andrew described the programs at the heart of the petition as “a very important part of reconciliation.”

“If they cut it or if they alter it and anything like that, it is in my opinion denial of the harms that have been done and denial of residential schools in general,” he told Cabin Radio.

“Reconciliation is not an event. It’s not a 10-year event, it’s not a 20-year event. It’s reconciliation for the future. We’re talking our babies, our grandchildren. We’re talking about those who are not born yet. We have got to give them a chance to have a happy, decent life.”

He said he took heart that the petition’s existence demonstrated the issue is “not a concern of just some people, but a concern of many people.”

Gazan on Thursday also reiterated her calls for the federal government to add residential school denialism to the Criminal Code as a form of inciting hate. She tabled a private member’s bill on that subject in October 2025, though private member’s bills are often unsuccessful.

In a statement, the office of Rebecca Alty – the Crown-Indigenous relations minister and NWT MP – said the Liberal government “remains committed to partnering with Indigenous Peoples to advance truth, healing, remembrance, and reconciliation.”

Alty was also quoted as saying Ottawa is “finalizing the partnerships and delivery mechanisms needed” to launch a $5-million “national public education effort” regarding residential school misinformation and denialism.

Aastha Sethi contributed reporting.