2021-2022 Federal Pathway Annual Progress Report: Summary

On this page

• Introduction
• Principles
• Overall progress
• Progress on cultural supports
• Progress on health and wellness programming
• Progress on human safety and security efforts
• Progress on justice initiatives
• Progress on organizational capacity and coordination
• Challenges to monitoring progress
• Next steps

Introduction

In June 2021, the Government of Canada released the federal pathway, its plan to end the tragedy of missing and murdered First Nations, Inuit, and Métis women, girls (MMIWG) and Two Spirit, lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, questioning, intersex and asexual (2SLGBTQQIA+) people.

The federal pathway is Canada's contribution to the larger National Action Plan, co-created by many governments and Indigenous partners across the country.

This is the first annual report on what has been achieved in 2021-2022 under the federal pathway.

"Indigenous partners have made clear, addressing violence means that we must all work together toward a shared vision, as presented within the National Action Plan: a transformed Canada where Indigenous women, girls, and 2SLGBTQQIA+ people, wherever they are, live free from violence and are celebrated, honoured, respected, valued, treated equitably, safe and secure." –Federal Pathway Annual Progress Report

Principles

The Government of Canada understands that how we work to end violence is as important as the results of that work. We are committed to honoring the Implementation Principles outlined in the federal pathway.

Overall progress

During the last year, more than 50 initiatives and programs led by 25 federal organizations made significant advances, including:

• a whole of government approach to measure progress in all areas, in collaboration with Indigenous partners, and help determine what needs to happen next putting into effect laws and policies developed with First Nations, Inuit and Métis women and 2SLGBTQQIA+ people to keep the voices of those most affected at the centre, including:
  • the new law on Indigenous languages
  • the new law to support First Nations, Inuit and Métis children, youth and families
• expanded funding for culturally-relevant violence prevention projects
• development of a distinctions-based mental health and wellness strategy continued support for the involvement of families and survivors in this important work

Progress on cultural supports

In 2021-2022:

• The Indigenous Languages and Cultures program supported more than 410 Indigenous language projects from First Nations, Inuit and Métis organizations serving urban Indigenous Peoples
• The new Indigenous Screen Office invested $13 million in Indigenous creators and organizations who are producing and sharing Indigenous films
• The new Cultural Spaces in Indigenous Communities was launched and funded 14 safe space projects
• The Listen, Hear Our Voices initiative continued to support the digitization of records in Indigenous organizations, and also digitized 568 recordings on behalf of several communities
• Treasury Board Secretariat amended the Public Service Employment Act and made efforts to address systemic barriers for Indigenous women, girls and 2SLGBTQQIA+ people in public service staffing
• Through its Indigenous Learning Series, the Canada School of Public Service has delivered training to more than 93,884 participants from the public service and 36,000 public servants took part in virtual events on topics related to Indigenous realities.

Progress on health and wellness programming

In 2021-2022, after the tragic death of Joyce Echaquan in September 2020, eliminating anti-Indigenous racism in health systems became a top priority and included increased funding of almost $128 million over 3 years in Budget 2021 to:

• increase access to culturally safe services, such as Indigenous midwives
• adapt health care systems to improve cultural and patient safety
• provide Indigenous patients with supports to safely navigate provincial health systems
• provide federal leadership and funding to advance concrete actions in addressing anti-Indigenous racism in Canada's health systems and to lead by example through the evaluation and improvement our own programs and practices

Beyond the focus on eliminating racism in health systems, we also:

• continued work on the co-development of new Indigenous health legislation, including funding 36 Indigenous organizations to organize engagements and provide reports that will inform the design of the legislation. The legislation is needed to foster health systems that will respect and ensure the safety and wellbeing of Indigenous peoples based on distinctions i.e. First Nations systems for First Nations, Inuit systems for Inuit and Métis systems for Métis
• launched the new Support for the Wellbeing of Families and Survivors of Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women, Girls and 2SLGBTQQIA+ People program and funded 20 projects to support the healing journeys of families and survivors
• renewed the funding for trauma-informed emotional, cultural and mental health supports for those affected by the issue of missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls through Budget 2021
• increased funding to improve drinking water systems and other infrastructure on reserve that contribute to health and wellness
• the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) continued to work closely with Indigenous communities to build capacity for research and knowledge translation through major initiatives such as the:
  • Indigenous Healthy Life Trajectories Initiative
  • Indigenous Gender and Wellness Initiative
  • Inuit Research Network Grant developed with the Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami and launched in August 2021

Progress on human safety and security efforts

In 2021-2022, we:

• launched a new Indigenous Shelter and Transitional Housing Initiative to build at least 38 new shelters and 50 new transitional homes across Canada
• started building 2,400 new affordable housing units for Indigenous Peoples through round 2 of the new Rapid Housing Initiative
• provided about $92 million to 24 organizations to support community-based approaches to prevent and reduce Indigenous homelessness in urban, rural and remote communities through Reaching Home
• funded First Nations-operated schools on reserve to provide free menstrual products to students as of December 2021 through specific increased funding
• started to improve the safety of Indigenous women, girls and 2SLGBTQQIA+ people who live in rural and remote areas through the new Rural Transit Solutions Fund which will help them get around their communities more easily and connect with nearby communities
• started building 12 new cell towers on the Highway of Tears (Highway 16) in British Columbia to provide cellphone access on the last 252 kilometres of road in an area which has seen many murders and disappearances over the past 30 years
• committed $55 million over 5 years through Budget 2021 to increase the capacity of Indigenous women's and 2SLGBTQQIA+ organizations to provide gender-based violence prevention programs

Progress on justice initiatives

In 2021-2022, we:

• as one of the first steps in implementing Canada's new United Nations Declaration on Implementing the Rights of Indigenous Peoples Act, funded Indigenous-led engagement to help shape the new action plan and provide ideas on how to align federal laws with the new act
• expanded the Indigenous Justice Program to better support Indigenous-led community-based programs providing family mediation services
• expanded the Indigenous Courtwork Program to better support Indigenous families navigating the Canadian justice system
• provided support for Indigenous-led groups to help develop the new Indigenous Justice Strategy
• began the process to co-develop a new law for First Nations police services with the Assembly of First Nations, the First Nations Chiefs of Police Association and the First Nations Police Governance Council
• registered 27,040 newly eligible persons under the Indian Act, some as a result of amendments to the act which eliminated known sex-based inequalities preventing Indigenous women from passing down their status to their descendants

Progress on organizational capacity and coordination

In 2021-22, we:

• established a permanent Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls Secretariat which brings together Government of Canada partners to:
  • discuss the impacts of their federal pathway initiatives
  • coordinate the work of federal, provincial, territorial and Indigenous partners in implementing the federal pathway
  • track progress
• launched the new Supporting Indigenous Women's and 2SLGBTQQIA+ Organizations program and funded 20 projects from 4 national organizations, 13 regional and community-level Indigenous women's organizations and 3 2SLGBTQQIA+ organizations

Challenges to monitoring progress

How do we know if we are making progress? Are Indigenous women, girls and 2SLGBTQQIA+ people safer? There are some major challenges in monitoring progress specific to Indigenous women, girls and 2SLGBTQQIA+ people. They include:

• non-comparable data
• poor quality data
• no common baseline data
• data that does not take into account Indigenous identity groups
• data that does not take into account Indigenous understandings of safety and progress

New programs to improve data include the:

• Indigenous-Led Data Research Projects program, which funded 19 projects;
• Disaggregated Data Action Plan
• development of a new national strategy to ensure consistency in practices for reporting missing Indigenous women, girls, and 2SLGBTQQIA+ people

Next steps

In 2022-2023, we will focus on the following evolving needs of Indigenous women, girls and 2SLGBTQQIA+ people, as expressed by partners:

1. developing strong mechanisms to track concrete progress
2. improving access to education and job training
3. creating wrap-around services for youth
4. expanding programs that provide healing and wellness
5. improving services for family members and survivors navigating the justice system
6. developing public service campaigns
7. improving data
8. supporting greater collaboration between federal, provincial, territorial and Indigenous governments across jurisdictions

Budget 2022 will invest an additional $11 billion over 6 years to support Indigenous children, families and communities and enable them to continue to grow and shape their futures. New initiatives include:

• increased funding for professional arts organizations
• renewing Canada's anti-racism strategy
• more funding for distinctions-based mental wellness strategies
• increased support for organizations to prevent homelessness
• speeding up closing Indigenous housing gaps
• advancing economic reconciliation in natural resources
• increased funding to implement the United Nations Declaration on Rights of Indigenous Peoples Act
• increased support for legal aid services

Indigenous women, girls and 2SLGBTQQIA+ people have the right to be safe, and the Government of Canada will ensure that its programs and services meet their needs. We will continue to talk with Indigenous partners, families and survivors to strengthen our work together, identify future work and monitor the success of these continuing initiatives and new federal initiatives in 2022-2023.