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When Federal Indigenous Services Minister Mandy Gull-Masty announced $4.6 billion in new funding to eliminate all long-term unsafe drinking water advisories on reserves, she refused to set a deadline for when that will happen.

GOLDSTEIN: No accountability for record federal spending on Indigenous issues Back to video

“The deadline goal is not part of my narrative,” she told the Globe and Mail.

That’s the problem with the Liberals’ approach to Indigenous spending.

There are no deadlines. Results aren’t measured against spending to determine if taxpayers are getting good value for money and whether Canada’s 1.8 million Indigenous people, 5% of our population, are being well-served, with many of the worst outcomes on First Nations reserves.

Standard of living below general population

The federal government’s community well-being index measuring education, labour force activity, income and housing shows that despite a small uptick for First Nations in recent years (and downturn for Inuit) the standard of living for Indigenous people remains well below that of the general population, including shorter life spans, higher rates of unemployment, poverty, suicide, drug addiction, mental illness, incarceration and as victims of homicides and other crimes.

In........

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