Feds commit $61 million to help Indigenous communities in Manitoba fight COVID-19

Ottawa will immediately provide more than $61 million to help Indigenous communities in Manitoba fight the COVID-19 pandemic, a move that Indigenous Services Minister Marc Miller said was prompted by the province’s alarming rise in cases.

“When we see the number of hospitalizations off reserve in places like Winnipeg, you see a disproportionate amount of Indigenous Peoples that are hospitalized,” Miller said in an interview Tuesday.

The new money will support public health measures, food security and other surge capacity needs. Indigenous Services Canada is mobilizing people to do contact tracing and sending equipment to affected communities.

The funding will include $38 million for public health services, $3 million for personal care homes, $3.4 million for community infrastructure improvements and $17 million for Indigenous communities on reserve.

Miller said Indigenous chiefs in Manitoba asked the government recently for more financial support to bolster their COVID-19 pandemic plans.

“I am a representative and minister of the federal government and the trust that Indigenous communities have towards us is very thin, sometimes, deservedly so,” he said.

Miller said there is a large number of vulnerable Indigenous people living off reserve and they have been historically underserved. Indigenous Services Canada doesn’t provide primary nursing or medical services in city centres because these services fall under provincial jurisdiction.

“We know the limits and how Indigenous Peoples have been underserved by the healthcare system that’s supposed to be giving them first first-class service,” he said. “This isn’t new. But it is something that we have to deal with, I think, the lessons learned.”

According to Indigenous Services Canada, there were 771 active cases on reserves in the country on Monday.

There are 492 in Manitoba alone.

The Manitoba First Nations COVID-19 coordination team said Monday that 50 First Nations people living in the province have tested positive for the novel coronavirus in the previous 24 hours, including 20 people living on reserve.