Federal government ends MMIWG funding to northern prosecution offices

The Public Prosecution Service of Canada (PPSC) says special funding it used to support victims of sexual violence in all three territories — which originally stemmed from the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls — has ended. 

The $23.5 million was initially allocated in the federal government's 2021 budget, and was slated to last for three years. An email obtained by CBC News shows that the federal government's decision not to renew it is leaving a 25 per cent hole in the PPSC's budget in Nunavut alone.

According to the prosecution service's 2022-23 departmental plan, the money was intended to "improve the level of justice provided to Indigenous victims, witnesses and communities experiencing sexual violence and intimate partner violence" in the territories. 

In an email, the prosecution service's communications director, Alessia Bongiovanni, confirmed the money had ended in the 2023-24 fiscal year and had not been renewed. 

Anne Crawford, a lawyer with 40 years of experience in the North, said the funding change will have a negative effect on the Crown's credibility in northern communities — and she doesn't understand why it's happening now. 

"We are very much mistaken if we think that the issues revealed in the [National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls] have been resolved by a couple years of funding," said Crawford, who has worked in criminal, civil, territorial and Indigenous law.

"If this was post-election and priorities were being realigned … you'd say OK, well that's where this is coming from," said Crawford. "It just strikes me that it's a glitch somewhere high up that somebody doesn't realize the impact [of]." 

CBC News arranged interviews with the chief prosecutors of each territory in mid-January. Bongiovanni then cancelled the interviews on their behalf. 

"We are working towards reorganizing our resources within the current money allocation in a way that will meet our mandate, while at the same time minimizing disruptions to the communities we serve," she wrote.

Canada's Finance Minister Dominic LeBlanc and Justice Minister Arif Virani declined interviews about the funding decision. Anna Lisa Lowenstein, a spokesperson for Virani, said in an email that "sexual violence anywhere is despicable, and location should never be a barrier to receiving justice." 

"We remain committed to supporting the safety and security of all victims, witnesses and communities across Canada, including in the North," the statement reads.

Lawyer worries important programs at risk

The funding has been used for programs like specialized prosecution teams launched in Nunavut and the N.W.T to handle sexual assault cases. 

In a press release about the creation of the N.W.T.'s team in May 2022, the Public Prosecution Service said it would be staffed with two senior prosecutors who have "extensive experience" working with people who are victims or witnesses of sexual violence. 

The team would oversee all cases related to sexual assault, it said at the time, and would also help other prosecutors to prepare for cases, work on prosecution strategies and make sentencing recommendations. 

In an interview in October, the N.W.T.'s chief federal prosecutor Alex Godfrey said the team was expected to grow to three people in 2025.

Nunavut, which had a sexual assault rate that was nearly six times the national average in 2018 according to Statistics Canada, launched its own specialized prosecution team in April 2024. At the time, it consisted of four prosecutors, two paralegals and a rotation of witness co-ordinators. 

The special teams are just one example, said Crawford, of programs that were bridging the gap between communities and prosecutions. That's the type of program she now worries is at risk because the MMIWG funding is gone.  

In other parts of Canada, she said, prosecutors, police and decision-makers grow up in the same places where they end up working. In the North, prosecutors, police and decision-makers often come from elsewhere. 

"There is a gap that requires trust and investment to bridge," she said. "Every time we remove services like this … we enhance that gap and we enhance the cynicism and the lack of trust that we have already created in [the] community." 

Crawford said she wonders if the decision was made by someone who doesn't realize the federal Crown is the only prosecuting body in the northern territories, unlike in the provinces where there are provincial Crowns too. 

She's also concerned the Nunavut prosecution office may not be able to keep all its prosecutors, and that it'll be those with the least seniority — recent Inuit grads — who'll lose work. 

'There will be changes'

An email from Philippe Plourde, Nunavut's chief federal prosecutor, obtained by CBC News said the funding's end meant the PPSC's Nunavut office had a 25 per cent hole in its budget. 

"There will be changes made to the office in the near future," he wrote in the Jan. 6 communication. "We are being asked to consider all solutions, and to be resourceful to make do with less." 

Plourde also asked people who were considering moving south or changing their employment in the next year to let him know, so that those changes could be accounted for in planning. 

Crawford said she hasn't seen Plourde's email herself, but she's heard of it. She also said the PPSC now has a 25 per cent hole in its budget in each of its territorial offices — not just in Nunavut.

CBC News reached out to the PPSC to verify the Jan. 6 email, the information within it, and whether each office had a quarter of its funding removed. 

The PPSC did not address the email in its response last week, nor did it directly answer questions. Instead, it said, each northern office was "undertaking measures to continue discharging their mandate in light of their current financial circumstances."