• New federal petition calls for permanent health funding for residential school survivors

  Source: Territories - Northern Affairs (Yukon, NWT, Nunavut)
  Date: 2026-10-01 21:42:25.0
  Tags: [National, Indigenous, Social Services, Healthcare, Justice]

  Winnipeg Centre Member of Parliament Leah Gazan submitted a House of Commons petition containing 930 signatures calling on the federal government to make health resource funding permanent for Indian Residential School survivors. The petition specifically targets the Indian Residential Schools Resolution Health Support Program—established in 2006 under the Indian Residential School Settlement Agreement—which provides cultural, emotional, and mental health counseling and is currently scheduled to sunset in March 2028. Additionally, the petition demands permanent federal funding for the Residential Schools Missing Children Community Support Fund, which assists Indigenous communities in conducting archival research and locating unmarked graves. The initiative also renews legislative calls to criminalize residential school denialism via a private member's bill initially re-tabled in October 2025.

  Read Original

• 'Father of Nunavut' has one more fight left: to live in the territory he helped create

  Source: Territories - Northern Affairs (Yukon, NWT, Nunavut)
  Date: 2026-09-22 08:00:00.0
  Tags: [National, Healthcare, Seniors, Social Services, Indigenous, Justice]

  Supporters of John Amagoalik, known as the 'Father of Nunavut,' filed two notices of application for judicial review in the Nunavut Court of Justice against the territorial government after it declined a request for $16,000 per month to cover his accessible housing and daily personal support worker care in Iqaluit. Amagoalik, who requires complex medical care following a partial leg amputation, was previously sent by the Department of Health to Embassy West Senior Living in Ottawa, where 73 Nunavut elders are currently housed due to a lack of territorial facilities. Friends and supporters formed the John A. Committee, raising $30,000 to temporarily bring him home, and are now seeking a court order to compel the government to adequately fund his long-term care needs within the territory.

  Read Original

• Saddle Lake Cree Nation asserts treaty rights over access to gender-affirming care

  Source: Alberta - Edmonton Journal (Legislature & Capital)
  Date: 2026-09-09 21:56:42.0
  Tags: [Alberta, Indigenous, Healthcare, Justice, Governance]

  Saddle Lake Cree Nation is asserting its sovereign treaty rights under the "medicine chest" clause of Treaty 6 to create protections for gender-affirming care on reserve lands and territories. The initiative directly challenges Alberta provincial legislation, specifically Bills 26, 27, and 29, which implemented restrictions on transgender youth regarding medical treatments, name and pronoun changes, and sports participation. Backed by Two-Spirit family physician Dr. James Makokis, the Nation plans to bring in Canadian-trained clinicians to provide uninterrupted medical services on reserve lands outside provincial jurisdiction.

  Read Original

• Denmark passes compensation bill for thousands of Inuit in Greenland forced to get IUDs

  Source: Territories - Northern Affairs (Yukon, NWT, Nunavut)
  Date: 2026-09-03 14:28:17.0
  Tags: [National, Indigenous, Justice, Healthcare, Social Services]

  Following a 2025 joint Greenlandic-Danish inquiry revealing that approximately 4,000 Greenlandic women and girls were subjected to forced intrauterine device (IUD) implantations and sterilizations between 1966 and 1991, the Danish government passed a bill awarding eligible victims a one-time compensation of roughly $64,000 CAD. This legislative action has prompted Inuit women and advocates in Canada—where historical and ongoing forced and coerced sterilizations of Indigenous women have been documented into the 2010s, including 22 documented cases in Quebec between 1980 and 2019—to renew calls for a formal federal apology and financial restitution. While the Canadian federal government has not issued an apology or compensation program, it recently amended the Criminal Code in June to criminalize forced and coerced sterilization, alongside facing at least four active class-action lawsuits.

  Read Original