Manitoba chiefs decry backlog for $515-M Jordan’s Principle program

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This article was published 06/12/2024 (323 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Ottawa has committed $515 million to Manitoba First Nations through the Jordan’s Principle program this fiscal year, but provincial Indigenous leaders say the funds are not reaching their communities.

At a news conference Friday, the Interlake Reserves Tribal Council demanded the federal government resolve a backlog of requests that it said has left 500 families in its seven-member communities without support.

It joined other Manitoba First Nations to demand that growing backlogs be addressed.

“There’s more denials than anything, rather than approvals,” said Lake Manitoba First Nation Chief Cornell McLean, who heads the council. “We are not trying to blame anybody, we are just trying to hold them accountable.”

Demand for the federal program — meant to support First Nations children in need of health, educational or community resources regardless of government jurisdiction — has nearly tripled over the past five years.

Data from Indigenous Services Canada shows $540 million was spent on the program in the 2019-20 fiscal year. The amount rose to around $1.6 billion this fiscal year.

Manitoba accounted for roughly one-third of that budget, at $515 million promised.

McLean said his member nations are entitled to about $15 million, but have received only around $7 million.

Jordan’s Principle stipulates that when a First Nations child needs health, social or educational services, they are to receive them from the government first approached, with questions about final jurisdiction worked out afterward.

It is named after Jordan River Anderson of Norway House Cree Nation in northern Manitoba, who died at the age of five as the federal and provincial governments argued over which jurisdiction should pay for his at-home care.

The Interlake council said it has spent just over $1.5 million this year without being reimbursed. The money was dedicated to health, social or educational services that should have been covered by the program, McLean said.

Urgent Jordan’s Principle requests are supposed to be processed within 24 hours, but McLean said they are regularly denied or delayed so long they are, for all intents and purposes, denied.

Communities in the Interlake council have to cut from other programs amid the backlogs, he said.

Councillor Darrell Shorting of Little Saskatchewan First Nation said families are forced to make tough decisions without access to basic income supports.

“Especially right now, December, how do you say no to someone who has young children who’s going to be kicked out of their home?”

The Canadian Human Rights Tribunal last month ordered the federal government to work with First Nations groups to clear claims backlogs.

Friday’s news conference followed calls in Ottawa from the Assembly of Manitoba Chiefs, which told reporters that many First Nations are “currently running deficits.”

The assembly said the backlog has added financial strain to communities, forcing them to pay out of pocket for health, social or educational services that are supported under the principle, putting other important programming at risk.

“We’re looking for a compromise, at least something from the government to say, ‘Hey, get us through Christmas, let us feed our families here,” McLean said. “Here we are again, begging for money, begging the federal government to help us feed our people… it was a ruling that was in our favour and we should be able to help our people with that money.”

Canada spent $6.44 billion on Jordan’s Principle requests from July 2016 to Sept. 30, 2024.

Around $1.77 billion went to Manitoba during that time. The numbers account for 7.8 million products, services and supports approved nationally, including 1.1 million in this province, Indigenous Services Canada said.

Nationally, 478 people work for Jordan’s Principle, 62 of them are in Manitoba.

— With files from The Canadian Press

tyler.searle@freepress.mb.ca