Have a Heart Day 2026

Jordan's Principle

Jordan River Anderson was a child born to the Norway House Cree Nation who had a complex set of medical conditions and disabilities. He spent years in the hospital while the provincial government and federal government fought over who should give him care. The province wanted the federal government to fund it and the federal government wanted the province to fund it. Eventually, Jordan River Anderson got more sick died at the age of five, without having received the care he needed.

Jordan's Principle, named after that little boy who would've been the same age as I am today if he'd lived, states that First Nations children should be given any help they need in order to experience equal outcomes to other children. The federal and provincial governments/territorial governments aren't allowed to delay or deny services by fighting about who should pay. The child should receive what they need first, and any disputes can be worked out later.

First Nations communities face much higher rates of poverty, mental illness, and trauma than non-Indigenous communities. This is because of the historical and contemporary racism and discrimination baked into basically every part of society, and because of the current and historical genocide that Indigenous people face. This is also because the social services on reserves - such as education, healthcare, housing, financial aid, childcare, etc - are very underfunded compared to social services off reserve, and even off reserves, the social services Indigenous people get are not culturally apt and not adequate for their more complex needs. Because of the lack of general services and the greater need, many families rely on Jordan's Principle to help them access things that help their children, that they aren't able to access otherwise.

The problem is, Canada is applying Jordan's Principle in a really narrow way and a lot of the children who should be getting the necessary help that they need to achieve equal outcomes to non-Indigenous children don't get said help. The Canadian Human Rights Tribunal ruled in 2016 that Canada was discriminating against First Nations children by applying Jordan's Principle in a really narrow and inadequate way. Since that ruling, Canada has made improvements, leading to many people getting life-altering or even life-saving help, but Canada is still interpreting Jordan's Principle in an overly narrow way, leading many people to not get the help they need.

There are also many other ways that Canada is making it so that children don't get the Jordan's Principle help they need, such as making the system too burdening and confusing for parents and having long delays in service approvals and reapprovals.

There was a recent change in policy in Indigenous Services Canada (ISC), which they are calling a new bulletin. This new bulletin was made without consulting with First Nations communities. They narrowed the scope of products, services, and supports that people are allowed to have. The services no longer funded include:

-Housing services or renovations, including making housing safer, making housing more accessible for children and caregivers with disabilities, mould removal, and more

-Childcare

-Respite care

-Clothing, including winter clothing for the cold Canadian winters

-Furniture

-Vehicles that are often necessary to get to work, school, doctor's appointments, therapy, etc in remote communities, rural communities, and communities with inadequate public transit

-School-related requests such as tutoring for children who are falling behind or stationeries that children need to do basic schoolwork

-Salaries and service fees required for running group requests such as group therapy, cultural programs, classes teaching life skills, etc

-Help for disabled people such as mobility aids, wheelchair ramps, long term disability care, speech therapy, occupational therapy, etc

-Assessments and screenings for health conditions and disabilities

-Transportation to healthcare, mental healthcare, disability support, and other appointments

-Addiction services, mental healthcare, traditional healing

-Medical supplies and equipment such as medicine, needles, etc

-Healthcare for children in out of home care

-Social work

-Cultural and land-based activities

-Assistive technology that is required for disabled students to reach their full potential at school

-Assessments on what school-related problems children might be having and how to help

As you can see, all of these services are really vital and necessary for children to thrive and have equal opportunities. Indigenous Services Canada makes it so that families themselves have to prove that the services they're asking for are needed for substantive equality (aka equal outcomes). This is process is burdensome, confusing, and difficult to navigate for families, leading to many children not getting the help they need. This process is also burdensome to professionals, who often do not have the time to do it. Additionally, the onus is on families to prove that there are no other services that can meet their needs, which is burdensome, confusing, and not possible for many families. What should be happening is that families should only need one document from a related professional or elder to have their needs met. This document would be enough to prove that the needs are legitimate.

Programs and services that are already in place for children and families, that are being funded by Jordan's Principle, would lose funding due to this bulletin. These programs help people heal their trauma, keep themselves and their loved ones healthy, connect to their land and culture, have support for their disabilities, learn important life skills, and so many other things.

Group programs are especially negatively impacted by Indigenous Services Canada's new bulletin. In addition to not getting funding for cultural and land-based programs, group requests now need the name and details of each child participating. This makes them less flexible, since new children who need the program won't be able to join later. It also creates undue burden on the people running the programs.

There will also be no more funding given for building or purchasing buildings for service delivery under the new bulletin. This is a problem since services such as different types of therapy, education, health clinics, and more need buildings to deliver the vital services they provide.

What might be the most unfair though is that the old requests that were made before the policy went into effect, which have not been approved yet, will now not be approved under the new policy.

The government of Canada said that Jordan's Principle was being misused but there is no evidence for that. The required letter from an appropriate professional or elder makes it so that misuse cannot happen anyways. The Canadian Human Rights Tribunal, which is a panel of human rights experts who are among the best informed on this topic, says that Canada must assume that each request is in line with substantive equality. The new policy is clearly apathetic towards substantive equality. It assumes that services for children and families already exist without having to access Jordan's Principle, which is simply not true. And in the rare cases where services do already exist, people are not getting any help to be connected to those services. The behaviour on the part of Indigenous Services Canada is disrespectful and dangerous.

In addition to denying services, the delay in getting services is also horrible. Long backlogs and delays mean that sometimes people don't get services for a long while, and sometimes communities have to pay out of pocket for services, which they often don't get reimbursement for. This means that communities have to redirect funding that would go to other important projects.

Urgent individual requests should be approved within 12 hours, and urgent group requests should be approved within 48 hours, according to the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal. Urgent requests are cases where there is a risk of death or physical harm, risk of a child being taken to out of home care, children or caregivers fleeing domestic violence, children without basic necessities, or children needing end of life care. As you can see, urgent requests need to be approved and services delivered quickly, or else children are at serious risk. However, there are long delays in fulfilling many of these requests. As of March 2025, only 16% of individual urgent requests and 0% of group urgent requests were answered in a timely manner.

In May of 2025 there was a backlog of 135 000 requests that had not even been opened or looked at. By October of the same year the backlog had increased to 140 000 requests.

In addition, there are serious issues with the national and regional Jordan's Principle call lines, making it harder for families to navigate the process and make requests for their children.

The structure, organization, and coordination of the Jordan's Principle system are inadequate. The framework of how Jordan's Principle will be delivered is badly planned, and there are gaps in Indigenous Services Canada's system. The federal rollout, funding, and infrastructure of Jordan's Principle is uncoordinated, undefined, and insufficiently documented, which makes the process inefficient, unreliable, and difficult to improve.

Non-urgent requests need to be approved in reasonable timeframes too, since the children do need the service and shouldn't be kept waiting. The Canadian Human Rights Tribunal said that non urgent individual requests should be met within 48 hours, and non urgent group requests should be met within seven days. These timeframes are also being ignored in many cases.

These problems can be fixed though. We can and need to do long term reform of Jordan's Principle. The long term reform must uphold the sacredness of children. It must be transparent and accountable. And it must have First Nations communities and especially young people as the ultimate decision makers leading and guiding the system. First Nations, Jordan's Principle experts, elders, youth, the Jordan's Principle Operations Committee, and regional experts should be incorporated into and play key roles in the negotiations for long term reform. The final agreement must be for the purpose of holding Canada accountable to stop and prevent discrimination and promote inter generational equity, transparency, and inclusion.

The new Jordan's Principle system we need to create must be transparent and accountable to First Nations communities. There needs to be a Dispute Resolution Tribunal that has real independence, real power, and real effectiveness to stop any discrimination that occurs. The current dispute resolution system is not adequate to fulfill this task.

The new system needs to ensure that it is meeting the unique needs of each community and including each community's perspectives, opinions, and desires.

The funding for Jordan's Principle needs to not have a set limit, but rather take care of the needs of the children who need it. Funding structures must be upwardly adjustable (aka the funding can be increased) to properly fulfill all the needs. The funding must be predictable, stable, sustainable, needs based, unconditional, culturally appropriate, and for the purpose of substantive equality. There needs to be money to build the necessary physical infrastructure. If Canada is letting First Nations provide services, they need to ensure they have the funding they need to successfully do so. Not funding this legal obligation properly could lead to children ending up in foster care due to their parents not having the help they need to fulfill the child's needs, which is a human right abuse we need to avoid

There are federal-provincial and federal-territorial agreements that are involved in Jordan's Principle provision, because they help provide certain services to children and families. These federal-provincial/territorial agreements need to be fully disclosed during negotiations for a new system so that First Nations communities can improve on them and know exactly what they're agreeing to.

There needs to be improved data collection so that we can see the gaps in data and see what the outcomes are for children and families. In order to get data and figure out best practices, there should be a First Nations technical secretariat for each region and province/territory, who will gather and analyze data and disseminate information to communities, professionals, and leaders. During negotiations, communities need funding to fund independent technical and legal advice so that they can fully know what they're agreeing to.

Each family needs to have a fair chance in the system. There should be an ombudsperson that can represent families and children, and legal support for families and children who have been wronged. There needs to be a tribunal to arbitrate on issues children might be having with the system and to enforce the laws and agreements that are in place.

The Canadian Human Rights Tribunal, which is the legal body that determined that Canada is doing discrimination and that has been fighting to make the discrimination stop, needs to maintain jurisdiction over Jordan's Principle until the reforms are fully implemented and there is no chance of any discrimination reoccurring.