The Congress of Aboriginal Peoples (CAP) and its Provincial and Territorial Organizations (PTOs) today filed an urgent court application over the federal government\u2019s inadequate and discriminatory funding during the COVID-19 pandemic.\u00a0 The shocking lack of funding and discrimination impacts the most vulnerable and disadvantaged Indigenous peoples in Canada.<\/p>\n
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National Chief of the Congress of Aboriginal Peoples Robert Bertrand stated, \u201cThe Congress of Aboriginal Peoples and our provincial and territorial partners provide critically needed support and deliver services to many of the most susceptible Canadians. The federal government has abandoned its fiduciary responsibility towards a significant number of Indigenous peoples during this pandemic.\u201d<\/p>\n
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The urgent court application filed today in the Federal Court of Canada challenges the funding allocation under the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms (\u201cCharter\u201d). The application seeks to address the fact that despite the federal government\u2019s laudable goals, the funding allocations have been discriminatory and at the expense of the doubly-disadvantaged Indigenous populations served by CAP.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
As a result, it is simply not possible for CAP and its PTOs to provide any meaningful relief both to the many thousands of off-reserve Indigenous peoples it actively supports or to the hundreds of thousands of off-reserve Indigenous peoples that CAP has been advocating support for. These Indigenous people are included within federal responsibility in the Supreme Court\u2019s CAP-Daniels Decision. This urgent support must address Elders and others, healthcare, inadequate housing, food insecurity, educational and other support for children, mental health services, and COVID-19 preparedness.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
The legal action comes after the federal government ignored CAP\u2019s repeated efforts<\/p>\n
and preference to work with Indigenous Services Canada (ISC) to rectify the problem<\/p>\n
without litigation.\u00a0 The large majority of Canada\u2019s Indigenous population lives off-reserve and this court action addresses the needs of this population.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Chief and President Lorraine Augustine of the Native Council of Nova Scotia concluded, \u201cThere is a long history of underservicing, neglect, and discrimination towards off-reserve Indigenous peoples. The Supreme Court recognized this and now the Federal government is discriminating against the most vulnerable Canadians at the worst possible time.\u00a0 We had no choice but to go to court to save lives.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Congress of Aboriginal Peoples (CAP) and its Provincial and Territorial Organizations (PTOs) today filed an urgent court application over the federal government\u2019s inadequate and discriminatory funding during the COVID-19 pandemic.\u00a0 The shocking lack of funding and discrimination impacts the most vulnerable and disadvantaged Indigenous peoples in Canada. National Chief of the Congress of …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[39,45],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-31720","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-federal","category-indigenous"],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-05-01 06:26:35","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wawa-news.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31720","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wawa-news.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wawa-news.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wawa-news.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wawa-news.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=31720"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/wawa-news.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31720\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":31721,"href":"https:\/\/wawa-news.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31720\/revisions\/31721"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wawa-news.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=31720"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wawa-news.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=31720"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wawa-news.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=31720"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}