Only Two MMIWG Calls for Justice Fully Completed as Funding Uncertainty Hits Indigenous Organisations

THUNDER BAY – Seven years after the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls delivered its final report, the federal government’s own reporting tool shows only two Calls for Justice fully completed, 136 underway and 82 pending.

For Thunder Bay and Northwestern Ontario, this is not an abstract national file: Thunder Bay is a regional service, court, health, transportation and education hub for many First Nations, and Indigenous people made up 14.1 per cent of the city’s population in the 2021 census, compared with 2.9 per cent in Ontario as a whole.

What the National Inquiry Asked Canada to Change

The National Inquiry was not designed as a review of individual cases alone. Its mandate was to examine systemic causes of violence against Indigenous women, girls and 2SLGBTQI+ people, including policing, child welfare, coroners, government policies and social and economic conditions.

Its final report, Reclaiming Power and Place, drew on testimony from more than 2,380 family members, survivors, experts and Knowledge Keepers and issued 231 Calls for Justice.

The report framed the violence as the result of persistent human-rights and Indigenous-rights violations, not isolated failures. Its Calls for Justice cover culture, language, health, housing, income security, transportation, policing, corrections, child welfare, education, data, media, resource extraction and the rights of First Nations, Inuit, Métis and 2SLGBTQI+ people.

Implementation status: completed, underway and pending

The federal reporting tool does not track all 231 Calls in the same way. It says 215 Calls for Justice call on the federal government and that Canada supports action on five more, for a tracked total of 220. As of June 3, 2025, it reported 138 “actioned” Calls, which includes both completed and underway work, and 82 pending. Only two were marked fully completed.

Status Federal tracker count What it means

Fully completed 2 The federal government says the Call has been completed.
Underway / action in progress 136 Calculated from 138 “actioned” Calls minus the two completed Calls.

Pending 82 No action reported as completed or underway in the tracker.
Not captured in federal tracker total 11 The gap between the inquiry’s 231 Calls and the 220 Calls covered by the federal tracker.

The two completed Calls are both corrections-related. Call 5.20 asked Canada to implement Indigenous-specific provisions of the Corrections and Conditional Release Act, including provisions that require Correctional Service Canada to consider Indigenous peoples’ systemic and background factors and allow Indigenous communities to be involved in release planning.

Call 5.23 asked for a Deputy Commissioner for Indigenous Corrections; Correctional Service Canada says Kathy Neil was appointed to that role effective May 1, 2023.

That does not mean the corrections crisis is solved. Indigenous people remain sharply overrepresented in custody, and the federal completion of an administrative Call does not by itself change incarceration outcomes for Indigenous women, families or communities.

Major recommendations still underway

Several high-profile Calls are in progress but not complete. The proposed National Indigenous and Human Rights Ombudsperson and National Indigenous and Human Rights Tribunal remain central examples.

Call 1.7 called for independent bodies with authority to receive complaints and address rights violations. A ministerial special representative was appointed, but the public record still does not show the ombudsperson and tribunal operating as permanent, fully empowered institutions.

The Red Dress Alert is also underway. Budget 2024 provided $1.3 million over three years for a pilot, and Manitoba-based Giganawenimaanaanig was selected in 2024 to lead co-development and implementation work. Prime Minister Mark Carney’s May 5, 2026 statement also announced $300,000 for the pilot and $2.6 million over three years for the National Family and Survivors Circle.

Other work underway includes Indigenous shelters and transitional housing, community safety planning, Indigenous health equity funding, Indigenous courtwork, Gladue-related programming, First Nations policing supports and child and family services reforms. These are important, but they are program streams rather than a completed implementation of the full 231 Calls for Justice.

What remains pending

The 82 pending Calls include justice, policing, data, research and distinctions-based commitments. The federal tracker shows pending items connected to Criminal Code reform, research on men who commit violence, Métis-specific rights and services, and several 2SLGBTQI+-specific Calls.

This matters because the Calls were designed as an interlocking framework. A shelter announcement does not complete policing reform. A corrections appointment does not complete transportation safety.

A Red Dress Alert pilot does not replace the need for housing, trauma care, income security, child welfare reform and independent accountability.

The funding picture after March 2026

The funding situation is more complicated than saying all MMIWG work ended in March 2026. Some Indigenous organizations say key federal funding streams supporting their MMIWG2S+ work sunsetted at the end of March 2026, creating instability for advocacy, family support and implementation monitoring. The National Family and Survivors Circle said the loss of sustainable funding undermines long-term work, while Pauktuutit Inuit

Women of Canada said allowing critical funding to sunset would undermine Inuit-specific programming. Chiefs of Ontario also warned that supports were at risk without renewed, long-term First Nations-led funding.

At the same time, the federal horizontal initiative for MMIWG-related work still lists planned 2026-27 spending of about $810.9 million and ongoing annual funding of about $589.2 million across departments. Planned 2026-27 work includes family violence prevention, shelters, community safety planning, health initiatives, justice programming, policing, data projects and a new call for proposals for families and survivors programming expected in 2026-27 for projects beginning in 2027-28.

The key problem is not that every dollar disappeared. The problem is that the public record does not show a funded, deadline-driven plan to finish the 82 pending Calls or move the 136 underway Calls to completion. Short-term project funding also conflicts with the inquiry’s repeated call for sustained, Indigenous-led responses.

Cost of the National Inquiry and implementation spending

The inquiry itself cost about $91.8 million in federal allocations: $53.8 million to establish it and an additional $38 million to support its extension. Separate justice funding of $16.17 million supported Family Information Liaison Units and community-based services during the inquiry period.

That inquiry cost should not be confused with implementation spending. The federal government’s 2026-27 horizontal initiative lists about $13.09 billion in total allocated funding across MMIWG-related departments and programs, with roughly $12.19 billion in actual spending to date. Much of that money is tied to broad social determinants — housing, child welfare, health, policing and safety — rather than narrow line items labelled “MMIWG recommendation implementation.”

This distinction is important. A government can point to billions in related spending while families and Indigenous organizations can still fairly say the Calls for Justice are not being completed.

Why implementation appears to be a low priority

First, there is no hard legal deadline requiring governments to complete the Calls for Justice. Without statutory timelines, independent enforcement or a permanent ombudsperson and tribunal, implementation depends heavily on political will and annual budget choices.

Second, responsibility is fragmented. The Calls apply to federal, provincial, territorial, municipal and Indigenous governments, police services, courts, schools, health systems, media, social-service agencies and private industry. That allows governments to announce partial actions while larger structural Calls remain stalled.

Third, too much of the response still appears to rely on temporary project funding. Indigenous organizations have warned that March 2026 funding sunsets make it harder to retain staff, support families, collect data and hold governments accountable.

Fourth, the hardest Calls challenge powerful systems: policing, prisons, child welfare, resource development, housing policy and public finance. These are not symbolic changes. They require shifting authority, money and decision-making power to Indigenous communities.

Fifth, public reporting can make activity look like completion. The federal tracker uses “actioned” to include both completed and underway Calls, but only two are actually complete. That language risks overstating progress.

Thunder Bay and Northwestern Ontario implications

For Thunder Bay, implementation gaps are immediate. The city serves as a hub for people travelling from remote and northern First Nations for health care, education, court, employment, shopping and family needs. Calls related to safe transportation, emergency alerts, shelters, policing, trauma-informed health care, youth supports and child welfare directly affect women, girls and gender-diverse people moving through the city and the Highway 11, 17 and 61 corridors.

For Northwestern Ontario, resource development is also central. Chiefs of Ontario has linked MMIWG implementation to decisions about resource projects, including the Ring of Fire, and has called for governments to stop delaying First Nations-led solutions, improve oversight and address jurisdictional avoidance.

That means MMIWG implementation is also an economic-development issue. Roads, mines, work camps, policing capacity, housing pressure, transportation access and local health services all shape safety. If those projects advance faster than safety infrastructure, the region risks repeating the same patterns the inquiry documented.

Bottom line

Canada has not abandoned all MMIWG-related funding after March 2026, but the evidence does not support a claim that the Calls for Justice are close to complete. The clearest public accounting shows two completed Calls, 136 underway and 82 pending. The inquiry cost about $91.8 million, while implementation-related spending now runs into the billions — but money is not the same as completion, and announcements are not the same as accountability.

For families, survivors and communities in Thunder Bay and Northwestern Ontario, the central question remains unanswered: who is legally responsible for finishing each Call for Justice, by what date, with what funding, and with what consequences if governments fail?
Support is available through the MMIWG crisis line at 1-844-413-6649.