Report of the Standing Committee on Indigenous and Northern Affairs

APTN: Indigenous Services Canada is on track to miss its 2030 target to close the infrastructure gap between Indigenous and non-Indigenous communities, according to the House of Commons committee on Indigenous affairs. The committee’s latest report says the department should revise its housing investment strategy if it wants to significantly address the infrastructure crisis by the end of the decade, “since the target will not be met” under the current pace.

“The committee is worried that the current resources allocated to housing are not sufficient for the government to meet the targets it set itself as part of the National Housing Strategy,” the report says. “Changes are required if Canada is to significantly address housing needs by 2030.”

The committee heard from 41 witnesses between March and June as it studied how the housing crisis impacts Indigenous people countrywide. The MPs delivered a 51-page report this week containing 20 recommendations to immediately improve things.

MPs heard the longstanding housing crisis facing First Nations, Inuit and Métis has had “severe consequences” on everything ranging from education and economic development to cultural vitality and physical and mental health.

Community leaders testified that Indigenous people have been deprived of the basic human right to shelter due to colonialism, racism, discrimination, unaffordability, Indian Act paternalism, the lack of a sufficient land base, limited administrative capacity and decades of chronic, wilful underfunding.

“Throughout the country’s colonial history, Inuit, First Nations and Métis have been subjected to atrocities and injustices which have had continued impacts on the subject at the centre of this report: housing,” the committee says. “Colonial policies have affected housing at its core, including by making it less accessible, less affordable and in worse condition.”

The committee opened the study following the delivery of a housing-focused budget by Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland earlier this year. The spending plan included $4.3 billion over seven years for Indigenous housing. But the Assembly of First Nations lobby group estimates the true cost of closing the on-reserve housing gap will be about $40 billion: nearly 10 times that amount.

During the 2021 election campaign, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau reiterated this pledge to close the infrastructure gap by 2030. It’s a topline item in Indigenous Services Minister Patty Hajdu’s mandate letter. The prime minister made a similar promise to end all long-term on-reserve drinking water advisories by 2021 while campaigning to run the country in 2015. The Liberals missed that deadline and refuse to offer a new one more than a year later.

For full details on all 20 recommendations as well as background context on the scope and consequences of the housing shortage and the following contributing factors, click on the following link:

• Systemic Barriers 
• Affordability, High Costs and Remoteness 
• The Indian Act 
• Limited Land Base and Infrastructure 
• Population Growth
• Limited Capacity 

https://www.ourcommons.ca/Content/Committee/441/INAN/Reports/RP11862143/inanrp03/inanrp03-e.pdf