Indigenous women leaders say budget doesn't address their realities

Detailed summary

Indigenous leaders from across Canada gathered in Ottawa on Thursday to say Prime Minister Mark Carney's new budget leaves Indigenous women out of the decisions made in the more than 500-page document.

"Budget 2026 represents a missed opportunity to make Indigenous women's safety and healing a sustained national priority," said Josie Nepinak, president of the Native Women's Association of Canada.

She was joined by Lisa Pigeau, director of intergovernmental relations for Les Femmes Michif Otipemisiwak, former executive director of Pauktuutit Inuit Women of Canada Rose Mary Cooper, Quebec Native Women President Marjolaine Étienne and Ontario Native Women's Association CEO Cora McGuire-Cyrette.

Cooper said the budget does not account for the dangers Indigenous women face in northern and remote Indigenous communities, adding that Inuit women were not mentioned once in the document.

"For many Indigenous women, safety is a plane ride away," Cooper said, adding that most communities in Inuit Nunangat can only be reached by air, and 60 per cent have no shelters or other safe spaces.

One in six Indigenous women have experienced at least one form of intimate partner violence, according to Statistics Canada. According to federal data, while Indigenous women make up only five per cent of all women in Canada, they made up approximately 26 per cent of women killed by an intimate partner in 2022.

"When an Indigenous woman needs to flee violence, she often must leave her family, her language, her land and her whole surrounding," Cooper said. "A model designed for seven cities does not work in small flying communities where food and housing costs weigh much more. One size does not fit all."

Cooper added that responses "must be tailored to where Indigenous women live and be designed and led by the women who live there."

While Carney's budget pledges $50 billion over the next 10 years to Indigenous programs and services — including $32 billion over 10 years for First Nations housing and…

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