New funding for MMIWG Calls for Justice projected to be cut in half: CCPA report

By Jeremy Appel, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter 

(ANNews) – The Canadian government is backsliding on its funding commitments for achieving the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls’ (MMIWG) Calls for Justice, according to a new report. 

The Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives (CCPA) tracked federal spending on programs related to the 231 Calls for Justice from the inquiry into MMIWG’s 2019 final report, Reclaiming Power and Place.

The CCPA identified $146.3 billion in spending commitments related to the calls from 2019/2020 to 2030/31 across 94 federal programs and initiatives. That figure includes $24.7 billion, or 17 per cent, for new programs, including child welfare, housing and infrastructure, health and wellness, culture, and safety. 

“These investments reflect a recognition that the violence faced by Indigenous women, girls, and gender-diverse people is systemic, and that ending it requires sustained coordinated action,” reads the June 2026 CCPA report.

“However, the findings of this report make clear that this progress is fragile. Nearly half of all federal programs linked to the calls have ended or are at risk of being sunsetted in the coming years.”

According to the CCPA analysis, annual spending on new programs is projected to be cut in half from a height of $3.7 billion in 2024/25 to about $1.8 billion in 2028/29 and afterwards, potentially “erasing recently developed social infrastructure and reversing progress.” 

Niall Harney, a Winnipeg-based senior researcher for the CCPA who co-authored the report, told Alberta Native News that the bulk of cumulative funding from 2019 to 2031 “comes from longstanding programs that the federal government has a constitutional obligation to deliver on.” 

These include education on reserve, income assistance, and child and family services. 

The reason that new annual spending is projected to be reduced so sharply over the next few years is that many of these programs are “short-term in nature,” Harney explained. But some weren’t funded as advertised. 

The Indigenous Shelter and Transitional Housing Initiative, launched in 2021, was supposed to provide $720 million to build homes for Indigenous people facing gender-based violence, yet only $260 million was actually funded before the program ended in 2025, the report notes. 

Another area of backsliding is mental health support. The feds have provided $2.1 billion for its Mental Wellness Program, which will end in 2028. 

In March 2026, the government announced $630 million in funding for Indigenous mental health for two years as part of a broader $2-billion commitment for essential Indigenous programming. 

“A lot of these programs … require communities to apply to the programs, and then as these programs change names or change structure, communities have to find a whole new kind of pathway to apply for funding,” said Harney.

“This lack of long-term stable funding really slows down progress on addressing the calls.”

The former chair of the MMIWG inquiry, Marion Buller has criticized the “glacial pace” of action, “if any,” on the Calls for Justice, a concern echoed by Assembly of First Nations National Chief Cindy Woodhouse Nepinak, as well as the Native Women’s Association of Canada and the National Family and Survivors Circle. 

The CCPA report concludes with 10 recommendations to ensure the feds meet their constitutional obligations towards Indigenous Peoples while getting itself on track to fulfill the Calls for Justice. 

These include adopting a “permanent … funding framework” for MMIWG, prioritizing Indigenous-led community partners, addressing the “severe funding gaps” that exist for urban Indigenous populations, and boosting “investments in Indigenous housing, shelters, and safe infrastructure.”

The federal government committed in 2021 to addressing the National Inquiry into MMIWG’s Calls for Justice, and “they need to be held to that commitment,” said Harney. 

“We need to keep pushing forward and making sure that as governments change and as priorities change at the federal level, that [the issue of] missing and murdered indigenous women and girls doesn’t get lost in that shuffle,” he said.