2024-25 Operating context

In the journey toward reconciliation, Indigenous Services Canada (ISC) acknowledges the rights, respect, cooperation, and partnership of Indigenous partners. ISC aims to improve socio-economic conditions, quality of life, safety for Indigenous communities, and access to high quality services. Indigenous Peoples have faced historic discrimination due to institutional and systemic racism and continue to experience the lasting impacts in their everyday lives. The Government of Canada acknowledges that the relationship between Indigenous Peoples and the Crown was built on colonial structures that have contributed to the unacceptable socio-economic gaps that exist today.

Acknowledgement of these structures and harms are required to advance reconciliation with Indigenous partners. The path to systemic change must continue to progress and we must move more quickly toward fulfilling the inherent right of Indigenous communities as self-determining nations. In order to see true, meaningful, and long lasting results toward fulfilling ISC's organizational mandate, the transfer of the service delivery to Indigenous communities is necessary.

ISC's mandate is delivered through the Core Responsibility of Indigenous Well-Being and Self-Determination. The work to closing socio-economic gaps and transferring the responsibility of services to communities is focused on six areas where the Department provides services: Health; Children and Families; Education; Infrastructure and Environments; Economic Development; and Governance.

The Department is also guided by the Government of Canada's commitment to supporting the implementation of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission Calls to Action, Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls Calls for Justice, and Canada's Action Plan to supporting the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples Act.

ISC will continue to shape the services it offers in collaboration with Indigenous Peoples through ongoing engagement, communication, and consultation, all while recognizing the rights of Indigenous Peoples and the distinctions among First Nations, Inuit, and Métis communities.