NWT awaits federal budget in hope of Jordan’s Principle shift

When the federal budget drops on Thursday, the NWT will learn whether Ottawa is doing anything to address major education funding gaps caused by changes to Jordan’s Principle.

“We don’t have reserves in the same way as southern Canada, but we 100-percent still have Indigenous communities that need to have access to this program,” territorial education minister Caitlin Cleveland told Cabin Radio in early October.

Jordan’s Principle – which offers funding to ensure First Nations youth have equitable access to programs and services – was changed in early 2025 to restrict applications from off-reserve schools. In the NWT, only one of nearly 50 schools is on a reserve.

The territory is enjoying increased attention from the federal government in the form of Ottawa’s defence and major projects agenda, but “there are key pieces of those conversations that I expect to see as outcomes, and Jordan’s Principle is one of them,” Cleveland said.

Cleveland has been asking the federal government to address a nearly $60-million funding shortfall facing the education system as a result of changes to Jordan’s Principle.

“Earlier this month I, along with Indigenous government leaders, met with Minister Gull-Masty to again discuss Jordan’s Principle, where we were advised that changes are coming to accommodate territorial needs, though no timelines were given,” Cleveland said in an emailed statement to Cabin Radio. Mandy Gull-Masty is the minister of Indigenous services and holds responsibility for how Jordan’s Principle operates.

Cleveland separately told MLAs she had been reassured by Gull-Masty that “she will have forthcoming information for us” about Jordan’s Principle, but the NWT minister added she does not know what or when.

Some schools receive funding

Cleveland did, however, add that just over $37 million had recently d from Jordan’s Principle into NWT schools – despite the changes – but did not specify how, when, or which school systems were the recipients.

“We don’t have sight into exactly what those agreements are,” she said.

Cabin Radio contacted all 10 education bodies in the NWT to ask if they had been successful in receiving Jordan’s Principle funding despite the 2025 changes. Two responded.

The Commission scolaire francophone did not receive funding from Indigenous Services Canada under the Jordan’s Principle or the Inuit Child First Initiative for the 2025-26 fiscal year, according to an emailed statement from the school board.

That statement noted CSFTNO did receive funding from the GNWT, which has provided tens of millions of dollars in emergency cash to cover some Jordan’s Principle cuts. “While this allocation will help support services for students, it remains insufficient to address the CSFTNO’s ongoing operational funding challenges,” board chair Jessica King said in the statement.

Every Jordan’s Principle funding application submitted by the Sahtu Divisional Education Council (SDEC) for the 2025-26 school year alone was denied, SDEC chair Heather Bourassa said in an emailed statement.

SDEC did receive $423,379 in Jordan’s Principle funding for the 2025-26 fiscal year for dedicated one-on-one student support assistants to four First Nations children with complex needs, but those funds were approved before Indigenous Services Canada made changes to the program, Bourassa said.

After the requests were denied, SDEC retained legal counsel to appeal those decisions and ultimately request a judicial review. The education body said five of those decisions will proceed to a hearing in the new year.

“ISC’s mass denials have had severe and acute effects on the First Nations children,” Bourassa wrote. The education council’s funds “are rapidly becoming depleted” and Bourassa hopes the judicial reviews will be a success and restore Jordan’s Principle funding.

“Not only does the federal government have an obligation to provide this funding to First Nations children under Jordan’s Principle, but the federal government also has an obligation to fund the education of First Nations children in the Sahtu under Treaty 11,” she emphasized.

In published financial statements, the Tłı̨chǫ Community Services Agency reports it received about $9.7 million from Jordan’s Principle in 2025-26 and expects $6 million in 2026-27. The funding will cover about 4.5 teaching positions and 25 support assistants in 2026-27, the statements suggest. TCSA did not respond to a request for comment.

No other NWT education body reported a meaningful sum of Jordan’s Principle funding for 2026-27 in the same set of documents, though not all school systems report their finances in the same way and some bodies’ financials have not been published.

“The impacts on the education system have been dire,” Cleveland told Cabin Radio during a visit to Ottawa on October 7.

Frame Lake MLA Julian Morse said in April that NWT MP and Crown-Indigenous relations minister Rebecca Alty had floated the idea of topping up territorial formula financing – the federal government’s annual no-strings-attached cash transfer to the GNWT – to account for the missing Jordan’s Principle funding.

“We are in the process right now of looking at our territorial formula financing … I have heard that idea floated,” deputy premier Caroline Wawzonek said in the legislature last week, before adding she had not heard the federal Department of Finance express that idea or any position on it.

The federal budget will be tabled on November 5.