Question Period Note: Health Facilities Infrastructure

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• To ensure Indigenous people are well, safe and adequate spaces are essential to providing effective, quality and culturally appropriate health programs and services.
• Indigenous Services Canada (ISC) works closely with First Nation and Inuit partners to identify health infrastructure priorities, including critical and complex infrastructure projects such as the Grassy Narrows Mercury Care Home and the Weeneebayko Area Health Authority (WAHA) New Hospital Redevelopment Project.
• We have been and will continue to support First Nations in assuming greater control over health services for their communities, and to ensure they have safe and adequate facilities for providing those services.

FNIHB’s Health Facilities Program (HFP) aims to enhance the development and delivery of health programs and services through infrastructure by providing funding to eligible recipients for the planning, design, construction, expansion, renovation and/or repair of community-based health infrastructure as well as contributing to their operation and maintenance. These investments support First Nations and, on an exceptional basis, Inuit to provide health care professionals with the functional spaces required to safely and efficiently deliver health care services in their communities.

Annual funding for First Nations health infrastructure is comprised of two distinct sources:
1. Contributions funding from ongoing annual appropriation of $59.9M to support mostly operation and maintenance and limited minor renovation and repair projects at First Nations health facilities and related infrastructure.
2. Time-limited, short-term injections of contributions funding have also been provided through federal budgets and funding announcements representing the only funding source for larger health infrastructure initiatives (major capital projects e.g. new building, replacement, expansion and renovation).

With available funding, ISC-HFP uses a needs-based assessment and prioritization framework for its planning and funding allocation process. For instance, a number of weighted scoring factors inform how a health facility is prioritized, such as health and safety requirements, space demands, program expansion, population growth, etc.

If pressed on Health Facility Budget
• As of December 31, 2024 with investments of over $1 billion, ISC has supported 651 health-related infrastructure projects to plan, design, replace, expand, repair or renovate primarily First Nations on reserve health facilities, health professional accommodations, addictions treatment centres, other health infrastructure, and facilities hosting Aboriginal Head Start On Reserve programming.
• Of these, 534 projects are complete and 117 are underway.

If pressed on Grassy Narrows facilities
• Indigenous Services Canada continues to with Grassy Narrows First Nation on issues of importance to the community, including matters resulting from mercury poisoning in the English-Wabigoon River system.
• The Department is providing support for the construction and operations of a mercury care home, and officials are engaging with Grassy Narrows leadership to advance the construction of a new water and wastewater treatment plants.
• These facilities will address the health care needs of residents and provide supportive living for those who require it while staying closer to home.