Successive governments have failed to fully acknowledge and address the intergenerational harm and trauma on Indigenous peoples from Canada’s colonial history and its legacy of dislocation, land theft, residential schools, and genocide. Indigenous peoples today continue to face systemic racism in the healthcare, education, and justice systems, as well as discrimination in key areas such as housing and employment. Too many Indigenous communities still do not have reliable access to cleaning drinking water. Violence against Indigenous women, girls, and 2SLBTQIA+ people is so bad that the National Inquiry called it a genocide.

Implementing Indigenous rights need to be at the heart of everything that we do.

Indigenous leaders and advocates have already given us frameworks to work towards meaningful reconciliation. We must implement the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, all Calls to Action from the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, and all Calls for Justice from the National Inquiry’s Final Report. We must bridge the housing, education, health, resource and access gaps between Indigenous and non-Indigenous peoples. We must ensure Indigenous communities have the adequate resources to give meaningful free, informed and prior consent to resource development projects and decisions that impact Indigenous peoples. There is no time to waste.

Windspeaker: Proposed Legislation to Amend the Indian Act Continues Discrimination It’s Designed to End, Say MPs

Windspeaker: Proposed Legislation to Amend the Indian Act Continues Discrimination It’s Designed to End, Say MPs

Jenny Kwan, NDP MP for Vancouver East, said the non-liability clause allows the government to have “discriminated without impunity and underscores the sense of colonial entitlement.”

Idlout also raised concerns about the “sexist and…problematic” section 6(2) in the Indian Act, which she said is not addressed in the Bill C-38 amendment.

Under section 6(2), someone who has only one status parent will get status for their lifetime. However, the next generation will not. This is referred to as the “second generation cut-off.” This provides issues especially for women, who can easily be identified as a child’s parent.

Media Release: NDP secures critical funding for Indigenous housing through Confidence and Supply Agreement

Media Release: NDP secures critical funding for Indigenous housing through Confidence and Supply Agreement

OTTAWA – On Thursday, NDP Critic for Housing, Jenny Kwan (Vancouver East) and NDP Critic for Indigenous Services, MP Lori Idlout (Nunavut) secured $287.1 million for National Indigenous Collaborative Housing Incorporated (NICHI) to address the housing crisis for Urban Rural and Northern Indigenous, Metis and Inuit people leaving away from their home community. Under the Liberal government, Indigenous people are now 11 times more likely to use a shelter or live in inadequate homes than non-Indigenous people.

New Democrats have been relentlessly pushing for the government to close the funding gap. Today's announcement wouldn’t have been possible without New Democrats who forced the government to act by including support for Indigenous housing in their Confidence and Supply agreement with the Liberals.

Media Release: NDP secures critical funding for Indigenous housing through Confidence and Supply Agreement

OTTAWA – On Thursday, NDP Critic for Housing, Jenny Kwan (Vancouver East) and NDP Critic for Indigenous Services, MP Lori Idlout (Nunavut) secured $287.1 million for National Indigenous Collaborative Housing Incorporated (NICHI) to address the housing crisis for Urban Rural and Northern Indigenous, Metis and Inuit people leaving away from their home community. Under the Liberal government, Indigenous people are now 11 times more likely to use a shelter or live in inadequate homes than non-Indigenous people.

New Democrats have been relentlessly pushing for the government to close the funding gap. Today's announcement wouldn’t have been possible without New Democrats who forced the government to act by including support for Indigenous housing in their Confidence and Supply agreement with the Liberals.

“In my riding of Vancouver East, we have the third largest urban Indigenous population in the country and we have had multiple homeless encampments. Indigenous peoples are disproportionately represented among the unhoused population, yet this government has dragged its feet in providing a For Indigenous By Indigenous housing,” said Kwan. “While this is the step in the right direction, there’s more work to do.”

This announcement, pushed by New Democrats, delivers on one of the NDP’s key promises on a For-Indigenous, By-Indigenous Housing Strategy. NICHI brings together Indigenous-led housing, homelessness, and housing-related organizations to provide long-term solutions.

Windbreaker: Housing by Indigenous, for Indigenous turns page on colonial approach

NICHI, formalized in January, is a coalition of more than 50 Indigenous-led housing, homelessness, and housing-related organizations from across Canada. The aim of the organization is to deliver on housing for those Indigenous people no longer living in Indigenous communities.

The New Democratic Party (NDP) is taking credit for moving the Liberal government along on the matter.
East Vancouver NDP MP Jenny Kwan, who was also at the announcement, said the NDP had prioritized significant investments to address the housing needs of First Nations, Métis and Inuit peoples as part of its confidence-and-supply agreement with the Liberal government. The NDP also “demanded that it be for Indigenous and by Indigenous,” she said.

The confidence-and-supply agreement was signed between the Liberals and NDP in March 2022. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau was operating with a minority Liberal government after the 2021 election. The agreement with the NDP brought about stability. The NDP agreed to support the Liberals if the Liberals advanced certain NDP priorities. The agreement is set to last until 2025.

“(Indigenous-led housing) would not have happened had it not been for NICHI and the NDP in collaboration, yes, with the government. This is what cooperation looks like. This is what the confidence-and-supply agreement is meant to do. To make things happen for the people,” said Kwan

Media Release: Liberals continue to delay justice for Indigenous women, girls and two-spirit people and their families

In response to a report about the Liberals’ failure to implement all Calls for Justice by the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls, NDP Critic for Women and Gender Equality Leah Gazan issued the following statement:

“It’s completely unacceptable that four years after the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls, this Liberal government has only completed two of the 231 Calls for Justice, and more than half haven’t even been started.

Families and survivors cannot wait any longer for action to end the violence. While this government fails to act, Indigenous women, girls and two-spirit people continue to go missing or be murdered.

In May, all parties, including the Liberals, voted unanimously to recognize the missing and murdered Indigenous women, girls and two-spirit people crisis as a Canada-wide emergency. Recognizing the urgency of this crisis is not enough – the Liberals must back up their words with concrete and urgent action to save lives.

Our loved ones deserve justice now, and they deserve to be safe.”

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