Supporting First Nations Priorities

In the past four years, we have made significant progress on the things that matter to First Nations. We will continue to move forward to advance the priorities identified by First Nations, by:

• Continuing the work to eliminate all long-term drinking water advisories on reserve by 2021, and ensuring that water stays safe to drink.
• Co-developing distinctions-based Indigenous Health legislation – backed with the investments needed to deliver this care – and working with First Nations communities to ensure Indigenous control over the development and delivery of services.
• Addressing critical infrastructure needs in First Nations communities by 2030, and providing new investments to support the ongoing operation and maintenance of this infrastructure.
• Ensuring that the Act Respecting First Nations, Inuit, and Métis Children, Youth and Families is fully implemented, with long-term, predictable, and sufficient funding to support the full implementation of the Act.
• Working with First Nations to ensure that the Indigenous Languages Act is fully implemented, in order to preserve, promote, and revitalize Indigenous languages in Canada, supported with long-term, predictable, and sufficient funding.
• Moving forward with investments that will see all First Nations communities are off diesel and instead powered by clean, renewable and reliable sources of energy – such as hydro, wind, and solar – by 2030.
• Continuing – in close collaboration with First Nations partners – to deliver better and more timely distinctions-based support. We will continue to invest in the things that make a  real difference in the lives of First Nations  and their communities.
• Establishing a new national benefits-sharing framework to ensure that First Nations communities directly benefit from major resource projects in their territories.
• Moving forward with a new target to have at least five percent of federal contracts awarded to businesses led by Indigenous Peoples.
• Introducing co-developed government legislation to implement the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples by the end of 2020.
• Moving forward with a new co-developed, distinctions-based process for the ongoing review, maintenance, and enforcement of Canada’s treaty obligations between the Crown and Indigenous communities. This work will be supported by a new National Treaty Commissioner’s Office which will be designed and established with Indigenous partners.
• Developing a framework for repatriating First Nations cultural property and ancestral remains.
• Continuing to work with First Nations to implement the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s Calls to Action, and the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls’ Calls for Justice.
• Supporting a First Nations-led processes for rebuilding and reconstituting their nations, advancing self-determination and a transition away from the Indian Act.
• Working with First Nations to redesign federal policies on additions-to-reserves, and the Specific Claims process to ensure timely and just resolution to specific claims.
• Continuing to make progress on Indigenous priorities, meeting regularly through the Assembly of First Nations – Canada Memorandum of Understanding on Joint Priorities.
• Hosting a First Ministers’ Meeting on First Nations, Inuit, and Métis priorities, and continuing to advance meaningful inclusion of First Nations partners in federal and intergovernmental decision-making processes that have an impact on Indigenous rights and interests.