Budget 2026 fast-tracks pipelines and sunsets our programs. Our sovereignty sets the terms.
“Sovereignty that was once grounded in rules but will increasingly be anchored in the ability to withstand pressure.” – Prime Minister Mark Carney, World Economic Forum, January 2026
For thousands of years, our sovereign Nations have been governing these lands and waters using our own laws, withstanding generations of settler-colonial impositions and a prosperity Canada built from our lands. Budget 2026, titled “Masters of Our Destiny,” arrives as Canada promises to build big on those same territories. Its language of masters echoes the patriarchal era of Sir John A. Macdonald, when men in Ottawa decided the destiny of our Nations was to have our lands given away to settlers without our consent. Now, Canada’s destiny is to offer those same lands and waters to global investors.
Two meetings, two audiences
Ten days ago, at the historic First Nations–First Ministers meeting, the first in two decades, the Prime Minister promised more than $2.5 billion over five years for emergency preparedness and $630 million over four years for First Nations policing. One closed-door day to discuss the lives of more than one million First Nations people was lacklustre next to Canada’s Investment Summit, where Carney spent two days with global financiers, including BlackRock CEO Larry Fink and Blackstone President Jon Gray, and former Conservative Prime Minister Stephen Harper gave the closing remarks. The day of ceremony the AFN invited him to went ahead with a minister in his place, and the premiers of B.C., Alberta and Quebec stayed away from the meeting itself. Trust cracks when the guest list tells the story.
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Section 35 sets the table
The Crown’s fiduciary duty, affirmed through section 35 of the Constitution Act, 1982, does not end at a podium. Nor does sovereignty exist as a line item. Budget 2026 describes its new First Nations infrastructure financing pilot as offering “a financial tool currently used by municipalities.” We are sovereign Nations that refuse to be conflated with municipalities. Funding essential services is Canada’s fiduciary duty; our fiscal relationship with Canada is government to government.
Federal Budget 2026
Two days before the budget, the AFN asked for a funded plan to close a First Nations infrastructure gap of more than $375 billion. Budget 2026 offers $32 billion over 10 years for First Nations housing and infrastructure, about 8.5 per cent of the gap, and none of it flows until 2027–28. For communities, that makes next year a gap year full of unpredictable piecemeal funding. Ottawa is calling this more than $50 billion over 10 years for reconciliation, yet only $26.6 billion of it comes with a detailed five-year plan, and the $4.6 billion for water was first announced in June. The AFN has already said $32 billion falls short.
First Nations infrastructure is a smart investment. Closing the gap could generate $635.3 billion in economic activity, or $1.82 for every dollar spent, according to research by the AFN and the Conference Board of Canada. In a budget running a $62.3 billion deficit, that is the kind of return Canada should be chasing.
Where the money lands
Some of this budget brings real stability:
Jordan’s Principle receives $6 billion over six years;
Non-Insured Health Benefits receives $2.9 billion over three years.
However, stability must come with reform. Chiefs are calling for an overhaul of medical travel after a Fort Severn First Nation woman died in September when her medical transportation after heart surgery was not booked. A painful reminder of how often the system fails our people, from medical travel to hospital care, where In Plain Sight documented widespread racism against Indigenous patients.
Meanwhile, one-year funding leaves these programs unable to plan:
Indigenous Justice Strategy: $10 million for one year
Red Dress Alert: $3.6 million for one year (2027–28), shared with federal MMIWG coordination
National Centre for Truth and Reconciliation: $5 million for one year
For the people who deliver these services, one-year funding commitments lead to job insecurity. I found no new money for specific claims research or the UN Declaration Act Action Plan, and last year’s budget already cut Indigenous Services Canada and Crown-Indigenous Relations by 2 per cent, about $2.3 billion by 2030.
Follow the money
Now follow the money that moves quickly through the red tape.
Over the next five years, the Productivity Mega Deduction lets corporations write off $36.1 billion, including new oil and gas pipelines, and the government’s own analysis finds it mostly benefits high-income people. Every new reconciliation measure in the budget adds up to $26.6 billion over the same five years. Fossil fuel projects received at least $13.8 billion in federal support in 2026 alone, more than four times the yearly average of the $32 billion First Nations housing and infrastructure plan. Our funding pays for services Canada is legally bound to provide, from the Human Rights Tribunal orders behind Jordan’s Principle to the treaties that opened these lands to settlement.
On October 26, the Prime Minister promised to co-develop a First Nations Sovereign Wealth Fund. Budget 2026 instead launches the $25 billion Canada Strong Fund as Canada’s first national sovereign wealth fund. The First Nations fund promised ten days earlier appears nowhere in the budget.
Pacific Link, a $35–44 billion oil pipeline 90 per cent owned by federal and Alberta Crown corporations, is now a project of national interest, with the Major Projects Office set to structure federal financing. About $4 billion in public money is going to plan it in just 11 months. Last year’s budget set aside $10.1 million over three years for Indigenous consultation on fast-tracked projects. We have seen this before: Trans Mountain was pitched at $7.4 billion and cost $34.2 billion to build, and the Parliamentary Budget Officer says it is worth less than it cost. With the International Energy Agency expecting global oil demand to plateau by 2030, and the National Inquiry into MMIWG naming resource-extraction camps as a threat to our women and girls, Pacific Link is a political pipeline.
Environmental Defence counts at least $13.8 billion in federal support for fossil fuel projects so far in 2026, already more than all of 2025, and West Coast Environmental Law warns that designating Pacific Link with so few details leaves it open to legal challenge. Consent is the surest path to certainty, and every shortcut adds a cost Canadians will carry.
That warning has already become reality. Nine B.C. First Nations have filed for judicial review in Federal Court:
Boston Bar
Cheam
Lower Nicola
Kwantlen
Kwikwetlem
Skeetchestn
T’Sou-ke
W̱JOȽEȽP (Tsartlip)
St’át’imc
Joined by Cold Lake First Nations in Alberta.
Ottawa and its Major Projects Office must now account for years of legal fees, paid with Canadian tax dollars.
Investors carry a fiduciary duty to place money in stable, long-term assets. Even after Canada’s Investment Summit brought some of the world’s largest investors to Toronto, Pembina is still the only private company named as a partner in Pacific Link, holding 10 per cent with no development capital at risk before a final investment decision. Private capital is speaking clearly about a project fast-tracked unilaterally.
Capital follows certainty, and certainty comes from consent.
What our Chiefs have asked for
First Nations leaders have been clear about where the money must go. In 10 recent resolution packages from UBCIC, BCAFN and the AFN, Chiefs passed at least 67 resolutions calling for federal funding, and the same words return again and again: sustainable, long-term, predictable. The top asks are protecting lands, waters and salmon; health and healing; justice, policing and MMIWG2S+ safety; governance and citizenship; land claims; and education.
The pattern is familiar. Canada funds and co-develops action plans, signs trilateral agreements, funds the engagement, then lets the money sunset. Federal spending on new programs tied to the MMIWG2S+ Calls for Justice is projected to fall by about half by 2028–29. Program funding keeps Nations applying, reporting and waiting on a bureaucratic system. That system, built for the fax-machine era, keeps centralized control in Ottawa. True Nation-to-Nation relations put decisions and unrestricted dollars in the hands of our Nations without sunset dates.
Intergenerational excellence
Investments in Indigenous businesses are investments in the wellbeing of future generations. First Nations peoples have never sat idly by. Right now there is a clear paradigm shift from intergenerational trauma to a celebration of intergenerational excellence. You can see it at the Indspire Awards, and at the BC Achievement Foundation’s Indigenous Business Awards, where woman-owned businesses such as Sḵwálwen Botanicals, recently named 2026 Business of the Year.
Forty long-term drinking water advisories remain in 37 communities. Yet the Nuu-chah-nulth Tribal Council now holds the patent to a gravity-fed membrane system that brought usable water to Hupacasath homes, run by community staff.
In Manitoba, the families’ circle Giganawenimaanaanig is leading the Red Dress Alert pilot.
The Haida Nation won Canada’s recognition of title over Haida Gwaii.
At ȽÁU,WELṈEW̱ Tribal School, our children learn in SENĆOŦEN.
Sovereignty is the best investment
Sovereignty is the best investment this country can make, and the proof is in this budget.
The Atlantic First Nations Water Authority, Canada’s first Indigenous-owned and operated water utility, has cut the average boil-water advisory from 52 days to six.
Tla’amin Nation is using a federal loan guarantee to buy 100 per cent of a forestry operation in its own territory.
First Nations-led tools show what works: the $150 million Yänonhchia’ Revolving Housing Finance Fund, First Nations Finance Authority lending to Indigenous-owned projects, and a $7.5 million surety-bonding pilot for First Nations contractors. They are small next to the gap, and the new Partnerships for Indigenous Workforce Readiness Fund ($451.8 million over four years, part of it existing money) does not start until 2027–28. Nations governing by their own laws make faster, clearer decisions.
First Nations leaders, entrepreneurs, business owners and service providers will keep growing our own capital.
Two questions for Budget 2026
So read this budget with two questions:
Does it fund what you have asked for year after year?
Does it fund our sovereign governments, or only our programs?
If the answer is the status quo, the next move is ours. Read Budget 2026 against what your Chiefs have asked for. Tell your MP that Nation-to-Nation means funding our resolutions in full.
Buy from, invest in and celebrate First Nations businesses. Build with the power, strength and innovation on our home territories for our sovereignty.
The basic human rights sets the minimum standard. Our excellence sets the pace.
Huy ch q’u (thank you) for reading!
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