Question Period Note: Indigenous Relations & Climate Change: Bilateral Tables with Indigenous Partners

Indigenous Relations & Climate Change: Bilateral Tables with Indigenous Partners

• The Government is committed to continuing to work with Indigenous peoples to support self-determination and enable Indigenous-led climate solutions.
• Canada, in partnership with the Assembly of First Nations, Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami and Métis National Council, has three senior-level, distinctions-based bilateral tables that inform the federal government’s climate actions that better respond to the unique needs and circumstances of Indigenous peoples.
• The partnerships built through the bilateral tables have directly contributed to improvements in the way Canada supports Indigenous climate leadership, including investments of almost $800 million in more than 1,000 Indigenous-led projects relating to adaptation planning, clean energy, health, infrastructure, and climate monitoring across Canada.
• The Government of Canada will continue to position Indigenous climate leadership as a cornerstone of federal climate action and ensure that Indigenous peoples are full partners in Canada’s climate plan.

• In 2016, in parallel with the launch of the Pan-Canadian Framework on Clean Growth and Climate Change (PCF), the Prime Minister along with the leaders of the Assembly of First Nations, Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami and the Métis National Council established three distinct, senior-level bilateral tables to support self-determination and enable Indigenous-led climate solutions. The partnerships built through the bilateral tables have led to:
o Investments of almost $800 million to support Indigenous-led projects, in support of adaptation, clean energy, health, infrastructure, climate monitoring, and more
o Adjustments to the Low-Carbon Economy Fund to provide additional support for Indigenous projects that cut emissions
o Improvements to the Clean Energy for Rural and Remote Communities program, such that the program now supports capacity building, training, skill development and knowledge dissemination to help communities move to cleaner sources of power
o A commitment to improve Indigenous peoples’ access to the Disaster Mitigation and Adaptation Fund.
• Since the launch of the PCF (2016), Canada has committed more than $1.7B over 16 years (between 2016 and 2032) in targeted climate funding for Indigenous peoples including for capacity building, engagement, nature-based solutions, transition to clean energy, green infrastructure, adaptation planning, community-based climate monitoring and Indigenous knowledge, health and food system resilience, and emergency management.
• In December 2020, the Government of Canada released A Healthy Environment and a Healthy Economy, a strengthened climate plan (SCP) to meet and exceed Canada’s 2030 GHG-reduction target (which was 30% below 2005 levels at the time). The plan contains measures that align with, and help advance, priorities raised at the senior bilateral tables.
• The SCP commits to supporting Indigenous-led climate strategies and exploring means of strengthening targeted adaptation programming. It includes measures to improve:
o Clean energy, including $300M over 5 years to help transition diesel-dependent communities to clean energy
o Resilient infrastructure, notably integrating climate risk assessments and adaptation solutions into infrastructure management on reserve and allocating $150M to Indigenous communities for greener community infrastructures
o The protection of biodiversity through the creation of Indigenous Protected and Conserved Areas and the allocation of a portion of $631 million over 10 years to work with Indigenous communities to restore and enhance wetlands, peatlands, grasslands and agricultural lands to boost carbon sequestration.
• The SCP also proposes that the government work with First Nations, Inuit and Métis peoples to co-develop an Indigenous Climate Leadership agenda. This agenda would be used across government to guide decision-making. For example, this agenda could:
o Ensure that policy and program decisions support the devolution of federal resources to Indigenous peoples to address climate change
o Lead Ministers across government to include Indigenous peoples in the design and implementation of any climate programming, even for measures that are not targeted to Indigenous peoples (e.g. with carve-outs for Indigenous applicants).
• Since the release of Canada’s SCP (2020), the Government of Canada has:
o Passed the Canadian Net-Zero Emissions Accountability Act which, among other things, requires the Minister of Environment and Climate Change to seek input from Indigenous peoples based on the principles of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP), take in consideration the knowledge of Indigenous peoples, and provide Indigenous peoples with the opportunity to make submissions; and commits, in the preamble, to advance the recognition-of-rights approach reflected in section 35 of the Constitution Act, 1982, and the UNDRIP, as Canada charts its path to get to net zero by 2050.
o Tripled the net fuel charge proceeds available to Indigenous governments in federal backstop jurisdictions to ensure putting a price on pollution benefits Indigenous communities; these proceeds will be returned through co-developed solutions.
o Started to develop Canada’s first National Adaptation Strategy, working directly with Indigenous peoples.

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