E1. Indigenous

In April 2026, Indigenous women’s groups announced looming funding cuts for Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls (MMIWG+) support. These cuts occurred without transparent communication or forewarning. At the press conference, Hilda Anderson-Pryz stated, “in March, crucial funding to some Indigenous organizations ended with no official notification of renewal… This lack of sustained support is a significant barrier to making real progress and combating this crisis. Today, our right to life is threatened by the lack of political will and it will remain so until the government enacts the 231 calls for justice. But seven years later… only two have been fully implemented.” Anderson-Pryz addresses the heart of the matter – the true cost of funding cuts – Indigenous women’s lives. 

Contrary to the National Inquiry’s (2019) Calls for Justice, which outline the need for long-term, guaranteed, and sustainable funding, multiple programs and projects involving “Indigenous rights, title, and gender-based violence prevention and response” are on the chopping block (Macdonald & McIntosh, 2025). These cutbacks demonstrate that the lives of Indigenous women do not matter to Canada. 

In response to the press conference, over 400 family members of MMIWG+ have questioned the efficacy of National Indigenous women’s organizations. In a letter to Federal government officials, they note that “these organizations do not represent the families” (Ward, 2026, para. 3). This distrust is indicative of tensions between families and Indigenous women’s groups. Both this letter from family members and the National Inquiry (2019) emphasize the need to invest in and resource self-determined, family and survivor-led solutions. 

In this period of economic austerity, and given Canada’s long history of gendered colonization, it is not a surprise that gender-based reconciliatory initiatives are considered expendable.

These austerity measures follow news south of the border, where the Trump administration is making funding cuts to the Office on Violence Against Women, which will disproportionately affect Indigenous women. In November 2025, as a part of its attack on diversity, equity, and inclusion, Trump’s administration removed a report from the Department of Justice on Missing and Murdered Indigenous Peoples. Another generation of Indigenous women, on both sides of colonially imposed borders, is now subject to, and targeted by, government policy and societal indifference.

Canada likes to position itself as superior to our Southern neighbours, perpetuating a master narrative of a peaceful, multicultural, accepting, and polite country (Thobani, 2007). This posturing obscures the ongoing colonial genocidal violence that Indigenous Peoples experience through state regimes, policies, and systems. Our relationship to the nation state has always been defined by violence, and hate against Indigenous women runs deep. Despite a master narrative that portrays Canada as a human rights beacon, Indigenous women’s human rights are continuously violated (Luoma, 2021; National Inquiry, 2019a). 

Racism, heteropatriarchy, and misogyny have contributed to Indigenous women being targeted for violence (Bourgeois, 2018; National Inquiry, 2019). The “root cause of violence” against Indigenous women and girls is a “race-based genocide,” and gendered colonization that impacts our safety and contributes to increased violence (Duhamel, 2015; National Inquiry, 2019). Through framing MMIWG as an “Indigenous problem,” Canada has obscured its culpability for ongoing genocide (Bourgeois, 2015; Dowling, 2019; National Inquiry, 2019). The rise in residential school denialism, white nationalism, and general disdain for Indigenous Peoples continues apace, colliding with growing economic uncertainty and fear. 

Under “Canada Strong,” Prime Minister Mark Carney’s Federal government made massive budget cuts to “Indigenous Services Canada (ISC) and Crown-Indigenous Relations and Northern Affairs Canada (CIRNAC),” and to employees who work on the Indigenous rights and relations portfolio at the Department of Justice. These fiscal constraints will widen socio-economic gaps between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Peoples and contribute to the continued underfunding of essential human services. These cutbacks are not “neutral but in fact follow… racial [and, in this case, gendered] lines” (Levesque, 2025, para. 8). 

Despite Human Rights Tribunal findings that the Canadian government has continuously discriminated against Indigenous children through underfunding child welfare services, these recent measures represent a continued colonial strategy of slashing funding and violating the rights of Indigenous Peoples. Notably, “the Canadian Human Rights Commission” is also slated to face funding cuts, which will surely exacerbate the impact of these austerity measures (Levesque, 2025; Smith, 2025, para. 11). 

Amidst this uncertainty, Canada’s economic priorities reveal a shallow commitment to “reconciliation” (Assembly of First Nations, 2025) and gender justice, with disproportionate impacts for Indigenous women. Additionally, federal service cuts include Correctional Service Canada (CSC). Over 50% of federally incarcerated women are Indigenous (and have an MMIW family member). Given the importance of literacy levels for rehabilitation and reintegration, CSC’s proposed cuts to “library technicians and employment co-ordinator positions” will contribute to the ongoing confinement of Indigenous women (Ibrahim, 2026, para. 1), contrary to the Department of Justice’s Indigenous Justice Strategy (IJS) released in March 2025. 

Implementing the IJS strategy will require “substantial effort and funding commitments” (Horn, 2025, para. 11). The 2025 Canada Strong Budget does not mention the IJS. Just like the clip art adorning the IJS – this is yet another example of window dressing – the shifts, niceties, and apologies that momentarily give us hope, “only to ultimately crush it” (Horn, 2025, para. 13). 

Together, these economic measures confirm that the era of rights and reconciliation for Indigenous Peoples, and Indigenous women in particular, is long gone. Instead, as the budget reveals, our inherent rights, laws, and lives are overridden in pursuit of military, extractive, and industrial projects, so-called economic reconciliation or, the “National Interest.”

Clearly, the lives, human rights, and safety of Indigenous women are not a priority for the Federal government. These austerity measures coincide with record-breaking military spending. As NDP Member of Parliament Leah Gazan noted, Prime Minister Carney is cutting approximately “$7 billion of funding between ISC and Crown-Indigenous relations… and has recently committed $13 billion in military funding.” Funding constraints continue amidst increasing rates of violence against Indigenous women, and minimal effort to implement the National Inquiry’s calls for justice. 

Indigenous women have long identified the solutions, programs, and support needed to respond to and protect them from violence. Those solutions have been consistently ignored by successive colonial governments (Aboriginal Justice Inquiry of Manitoba, 1991; Amnesty International 2004; National Inquiry, 2019; Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples, 1996). Families have continuously questioned decisions that are made without them, behind closed doors. 

This lack of transparency and accountability continues with the Canada Strong Budget (2025). Existing programming was already subject to patchwork – meaning it is often unsustainable, short-term, and project-based (or all three) – funding issues, and ongoing struggles to meet the needs of clientele (National Inquiry, 2019a). 

Tightening the fiscal shoestrings and using stealthy “sunsetting” to halt funding that supports ending violence against Indigenous women – while simultaneously increasing funding to support the military industrial complex – demonstrates the Canadian government’s ongoing commitment to sustaining shape-shifting colonial violence.

Assembly of First Nations [AFN]. Federal Budget 2025. AFN, 2025. https://afn.ca/all-news/bulletins/federal-budget-2025/ 

Bourgeois, E. “Generations of genocide – The historical roots of missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls.” In K. Anderson, C. Belcourt, & M. Campbell (Eds.), Keetsahnak, Our Missing and Murdered Indigenous Sisters. University of Alberta Press, 2018.

Bourgeois, R. “Colonial exploitation: The Canadian state and the trafficking of Indigenous Women and Girls in Canada.” UCLA Law Review, 1426 (2015): 1428-1463. 

CPAC. “Indigenous women’s groups warn of the sunsetting of some funding for MMIWG supports.” April 8, 2026 [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/live/ak-r2G48WeA 

Department of Justice Canada. Indigenous Justice Strategy. Government of Canada, 2025. https://www.justice.gc.ca/eng/csj-sjc/ijr-dja/ijs-sja/tijs-lsja/pdf/IJS_EN.pdf 

Dowling, S. Elimination, in the feminine. Interventions: International Journal of Postcolonial Studies, 21.6 (2019): 787-802. https://doi.org/10.1080/1369801X.2019.1607525

Duhamel, K.R. “‘I feel like my spirit knows violence’ understanding genocide – and how to stop it – in the context of the National inquiry into missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls.” In J. Black-Morsette (Ed.), REDress. HighWater Press, 2025.

Fryer, S. & Leblanc-Laurendeau, O. Background paper: Understanding federal jurisdiction and First Nations (Publication No. 1019-51-E). Parliamentary Information and Research Service, 2019. https://lop.parl.ca/staticfiles/PublicWebsite/Home/ResearchPublications/BackgroundPapers/PDF/2019-51-E.pdf 

Government of Canada. Canada Strong Budget 2025. Government of Canada, 2025. https://budget.canada.ca/2025/report-rapport/pdf/budget-2025.pdf 

Horn, K. “The Indigenous Justice Strategy: ‘Progressive and Transformative Reform’?” Yellowhead Institute, May 21, 2025. https://yellowheadinstitute.org/2025/the-indigenous-justice-strategy-progressive-and-transformative-reform/ 

Hwang, P. “Cuts targeting Indigenous rights staff at Justice Department ‘reckless,’ critics warn.” CBC News. February 23, 2026. https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/ottawa/cuts-targeting-indigenous-rights-staff-at-justice-department-reckless-critics-warn-9.7097164 

Ibrahim, S. “Federal prisons to lose library technicians, employment co-ordinators in budget cuts.” CBC News. March 11, 2026. https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/prison-cuts-librarians-employment-coordinators-9.7123434 

Lapointe, J. “Can the new B.C. government bring real change for Indigenous communities?” The Narwhal. November 20, 2024. https://thenarwhal.ca/energy-economic-reconciliation-indigenous-youth-bc/ 

Levesque, A. “Carney government cuts unfairly hit First Nations.” Policy Options. July 22, 2025.https://policyoptions.irpp.org/2025/07/budget-cuts-first-nations/ 

Luetkemeyer, E. “Trump administration removes report on Missing and Murdered Native Americans, calling it DEI content.” Oklahoma Watch. November 14, 2025. https://oklahomawatch.org/2025/11/14/trump-administration-removes-report-on-missing-and-murdered-native-americans-calling-it-dei-content/ 

Luoma, C. “Closing the cultural rights gap in transitional justice: Developments from Canada’s National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls.” Netherlands Quarterly of Human Rights, 39.1 (2021): 30-52. https://doi.org/10.1177/0924051921992747 

Macdonald, D. & Mcintosh, E. ‘Budget cuts by stealth: Letting programs ‘sunset’ to cut costs won’t be painless.” Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives. October 28, 2025. https://www.policyalternatives.ca/news-research/budget-cuts-by-stealth-letting-programs-sunset-to-cut-costs-wont-be-painless/ 

National Inquiry. (2019a). Reclaiming power and place: The final report of the National Inquiry Intro Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls. National Inquiry, 2019. https://www.mmiwg-ffada.ca/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/Final_Report_Vol_1a-1.pdf
Pember, M.A. “Trump administration targets office on violence against women with ‘consolidation.’” ICT News. January 29, 2026. https://ictnews.org/news/trump-administration-targets-office-on-violence-against-women-with-consolidation/ 

Smith, D. “‘Concerning’ cuts to justice system in federal budget.” CBA National. November 5, 2025. https://nationalmagazine.ca/fr-ca/articles/law/hot-topics-in-law/2025/%E2%80%98concerning-cuts-to-justice-system-in-federal-budget 

Thobani, S. Exalted subjects: Studies in the making of race and nation in Canada. University of Toronto Press, 2007.

Citation:

McGuire, Michaela M. “Sunsetting Gender Justice: Economic Austerity and the Defunding of MMIWG+ Supports,” Yellowhead Institute. May 08, 2026. https://yellowheadinstitute.org/2026/sunsetting-gender-justice-economic-austerity-and-the-defunding-of-mmiwg-supports

Artwork: MMIR 2024, Solange Aguilar, @shesanargonaut

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1st May marks the boreal spring to be in full swing – our fisheries are open, Pacific tour is concluded, new honorary member accepted and restoration of habitats proceeds.

Captain Karoliina and the crew have begun their harvests on lake Onkamo and Särkijärvi, and pike, bream and perch fill the fyke traps. Also the delicacy – i.e. vendace cans have started to make their impact in Helsinki high street and in Europe, with more to come towards autumn. Early spring enabled the start of the open water fishery historically early.

The Finnish restoration season has also kicked off, with peatland restoration work commencing in Koitajoki, and new boreal sites that have been added in Kemijärvi, Muonio and Pelkosenniemi. We look forwards to a busy season ahead especially in Eastern Finland and Lapland as well as Sámi forest restoration early in the year.

Pacific tour of 2026 has concluded. Teams visited Japan, Taiwan and Vanuatu with a large workshop over in Sun Moon Lake that gathered delegates from the Solomon Islands, Tasmania, and Maori as well as the Indigenous Taiwanese communities. We heard from across the ocean the results of last years restoration of wetlands, and plans for community-led mangrove and other initiatives. We met with the Thao people in solidarity and made plans also for the Festival of Fishing Traditions slated for Taiwan in 2027. Sutej Hugu, Indigenous philosopher and leader from Taiwan, summarized the gatherings and approaches in his keynote by saying:

“We would like to clarify with you about the fundamentals of Indigenous conservation and restoration in the perspective of Indigenous peoples’ self-strengthening process and self-determination for survival and revival. By the living traditions of Indigenous peoples, as human species we are embedded in inter-species habitats, and as human beings we are connected to all beings around us. The embeddedness and connectedness are the kernel and basis of our knowledge and institutions, and the deep origin of our strength and resilience.”

In other news, Snowchange has a new Honorary Member. Occasionally when an individual deserves the merit, Snowchange makes a decision to call a person to be an Honorary Member for Life in the Cooperative, i.e. they have shown extraordinary skills, devotion and dedication to the causes, ideological foundings and work of Snowchange Cooperative. It is the highest honor of the organisation. 

The new Honorary member is John Macdonald from Canada. Following an informative upbringing in Malawi, central Africa, John MacDonald spent most of his working life in the Canadian Arctic, including twenty-five productive years in Igloolik, as coordinator of Nunavut Science Institute’s Igloolik Research Centre.

Beginning in 1985, he collaborated closely with Igloolik’s Inuit elders and community leaders (including Leah Otak, Louis Tapardjuk, and George Qulaut) to establish and develop a major program designed to record and document the rich oral history and traditional knowledge of the Amitturmiut.

Among many publications flowing from this collaboration, is his foundational study of Inuit astronomy, cosmology, and environmental understanding (The Arctic Sky: Exploring the InuitUniverse (2022). He is also co-editor of The Hands’ Measure: Essays Honouring Leah Aksaajuq Otak’s Contribution to Arctic Science (2018). Since his retirement in 2009, he continues his research on Inuit oral history and primary historical contact between Inuit and Europeans in the Canadian eastern Arctic.

Today, 1st May, 2026, Chair Tero Mustonen has made an executive decision to call researcher John Macdonald to be a lifelong Honorary Member of the Cooperative. This honour also includes the rights to use and benefit of all of Snowchange services, assets and operative bases. Mustonen states:

“We have been working with John and the Inuit people of Igloolik since 2002. John, through his devotion, brilliance and dedication to the questions of Inuit oral histories, in particular the star lore and celestial issues, has contributed to Snowchange in outstanding ways over the past 20 years. For example our Finnish oral history archives have benefitted in major ways from the work John and the Elders have carried out over in Igloolik. We thank John for his lifelong devotion and commitment to Inuit and Arctic cultures and work. It is a great honor to invite John to be our next lifelong Honorary Member of the Cooperative.” 

Previously Eero Murtomäki and his wife Rita Lukkarinen, as well as cartographer Johanna Roto have been called to be lifelong Honorary Members of the Cooperative – the highest honour of the organization.

Check back in May, as we head to June and we ll have SNOW25 and other celebrations awaiting once the summer gets here.

THIS SPRING marks 150 years since the Indian Act became law. 

Passed in 1876, the Act consolidated years of previous colonial policies and aimed to coerce Nations into bands, dismantling First Nation laws and governance, culture, language and social organization. It attacked women and children, identity, and restricted freedom to move, trade, and even socialize. It was (and is) racist and deeply paternalistic.

Perversely, the model of assimilation the Act aimed to achieve ended up insulating First Nations from Canadian nation-building and society generally. Over time, this particular model of assimilation faltered, and insulation became useful. Re-organized Chief and Council systems and their laws and politics would come to exist in a liminal space, a borderland where provincial or territorial regulations had limited effect, no tax regime to speak of, and — paired with an evolving set of Aboriginal and treaty rights — a de facto local authority.  

Harold Cardinal captured the Act’s contradictions well when he said the Indian Act “is discriminatory from start to finish. But it is a lever in our hands.”

So, despite many attempts by numerous Federal Governments to dissolve the legislation (St. Laurent, 1951; Pierre Trudeau, 1969; Mulroney, 1992; Chrétien, 2002, Stephen Harper, 2014; Justin Trudeau, 2018), it endures to the present. Sort of. 

After First Nations leaders rejected the 1969 White Paper on Indian Policy, the Federal Government began exploring alternatives to advance its agenda. This coincided with First Nations’ desire to control education after the cataclysm of residential schools. 

It would begin the era of “devolution.”

After Canada transferred administrative control of education, it realized bits and pieces of the Indian Act could be isolated, new statutory frameworks created, and First Nations offered an exit from the Act into alternative processes. The new approach would be incentivized with funding, limited capacity development and a sales pitch for more authority. Tellingly, the long-time Indian fighter, Tom Flanagan, lauded the shift as a useful “off-ramp,” given First Nations leadership’s rejection of the wholesale removal of the Act.

By 1999, this model had emerged more clearly with the development of the First Nations Land Management Act, a law that allows communities to withdraw lands from the Indian Act‘s land management provisions and to pass their own local regulations. The First Nations Fiscal Management Act, paired with new finance policies, removes elements of finance from the Indian Act. There are also the First Nation Election Act and sectoral education self-government agreements. More recently, the Child and Family Well-being Act offered First Nations control over child welfare service delivery (adjacent to the Indian Act but with the same thrust). Today, conversations are accelerating around status and membership. While it is hard to imagine the Federal Government devolving control over status, they are required by the courts to address ongoing gender discrimination regarding status and have been encouraging communities to move toward citizenship or membership laws outside the Indian Act.

According to the Crown-Indigenous Relations’ 2024–25 Departmental Plans, First Nations are getting off the highway at increasing speeds. In 2020–21, “the percentage of First Nations that have opted into an Indian Act alternative” was 55 percent. By 2022–23, it had risen to 68 percent. The department had set a target of 71.5 percent by March 2025. More than two-thirds of First Nations have now moved at least one area of governance — land, fiscal management, elections, etc. — out of the Indian Act.

Whether these are the right directions is an ongoing debate. 

In 2018, Yellowhead published a report exposing this strategy as ideological, not simply an administrative shift but a map for First Nations “towards a narrow model of self-government outside of the Indian Act, premised on devolution of program and service delivery” — without addressing land rights, treaty obligations, or meaningful jurisdiction.

On the other hand, there are Indigenous-led initiatives like the Transitional Governance Project, which supports First Nations in the conversion, alongside numerous organizations trying to operationalize the various off-ramps out of the Act. Many First Nations themselves believe there are opportunities, in the inches being offered by Canada, to take miles. 

The Indian Act wasn’t created as a coherent piece of legislation 150 years ago. It was cobbled together from previous colonial laws and policies, and then, over the next few decades, dozens of amendments were added. Its modular creation mirrors its piece-by-piece demise. As it unfolds into something new and different, we ought to ask ourselves: who is at the wheel?

King, Hayden. “The Indian Act, Exit 150: The Coming and Going of Colonization’s Foundational Legislation.” Yellowhead Institute. April 23, 2026. https://yellowheadinstitute.org/2026/the-indian-act-exit-150/

Artwork: Video still from the NDN Kars music video, Keith Secola

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In the quiet of late winter, tracks in the snow across Rahesuo and Valkeasuo peatlands reveal the hidden movements of wildlife. This field survey offers insight into how species survive the coldest months and how restoration in the Koitajoki Watershed is supporting boreal ecosystems.

Please see the news here.

We mourn the loss of two Indigenous knowledge holders from the Russian Arctic. Pyotr Kaurgin, a Chukchi reindeer herder and leader of the nomadic community of Turvaurgin in Siberia and Alexander Paul, Kola Sámi from Murmansk, have left us.

Pyotr Kaurgin comes from a long line and family of nomadic reindeer herders in the Lower Kolyma region of Sakha-Yakutia. He served as the co-lead for the nomadic community of Turvaurgin. As a respected Elder and knowledge holder he was leading efforts to establish solar electrification of the reindeer camps, establishment of nomadic education amongst the Chukchi of the region and reforms to the herding. Kaurgin is known world-wide for his vast contributions, detection and observation of climate change impacts to tundra, coastal and Siberian ecosystems. He was a key note speaker in several United Nations, Arctic Council and other international forums and believed in the large collaboration efforts Snowchange advanced when it was still possible. Kaurgin believed the changes under way in his tundra home can be navigated as long as people are on their land and live with her. 

Alexander Paul, a Kola Sámi knowledge holder, has also passed. Alexander worked in assessments of the region and its remote coast lines since the 2000s. He worked with several teams to assess the marine and ecosystem changes as seen by local residents and Sámi knowledge and contributed to several scientific and regional reports through his innovative, extensive and long field missions to remote, roadless communities. We remember Sasha with great fondness and offer condolences to the close ones.