First Nations call for audit of Human Rights Commission following death of 3-year-old

Chief Clifford Bull of the Lac Seul First Nation shows his ceremonial headdress in his office in Frenchman's Head, Ont., on Tuesday, April 24, 2018. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Colin Perkel

OTTAWA — A First Nations group is calling on the federal auditor general to investigate the Canadian Human Rights Commission, arguing its delay in hearing a case about funding for on-reserve fire services is resulting in unnecessary death.

On Monday, a house fire in a northwestern Ontario community took the life of Chief Donny Morris’s three-year-old grandson and left two others with serious injuries.

The federal minister responsible for funding on-reserve fire services is expected to address those chiefs during a public Nishnawbe Aski Nation meeting in Toronto on Thursday.

The Independent First Nations Alliance, a group of five First Nations that includes Morris’s own community of Kitchenuhmaykoosib Inninuwug, filed a Canadian Human Rights Commission complaint in August 2025 alleging Indigenous Services Canada was systemically discriminating against their communities by underfunding on-reserve fire services.

The First Nations say that case has been languishing ever since and they have not received updates from the commission since they asked for one nine weeks after they submitted their complaint.

“While we understand that the (commission) has a specific review process that it follows, given the risk to First Nations communities that exists every day as a result of the lack of proper fire services, we are requesting that the review of this complaint be expedited accordingly as the longer the delays, the more lives will be lost,” Julian Falconer, a lawyer working on behalf of the First Nations, wrote in an email to the commission in late October.

In its emailed reply two days later, the commission said it “kindly request(s) that you do not send multiple requests for status updates.”

“Since we have limited staff to respond to each status update request, frequent requests for status updates cause more delays in our process,” it reads.

Falconer said that email was likely a template and the First Nations have not heard from the commission since.

“You are either part of the solution or part of the problem. The commission’s systemic slow-walking of complaints is an atrocity that needs to be investigated,” he said.

The Canadian Press has reached out to the Canadian Human Rights Commission for comment.

Chief Clifford Bull of Lac Seul First Nation said Canada continues to ignore their pleas for fire safety funding. He accused the commission of complicity in the discrimination it’s supposed to prevent.

“This week’s tragedy underscores what happens when urgent complaints are not acted on and the federal government is not held to account,” he said.

The First Nations say they’re used to delays in working with the Canadian Human Rights Commission; a roughly 20-year-old case on underfunding of on-reserve child welfare services still has not been fully resolved. They also said those delays can have “serious implications for First Nations communities.”

They’re calling on the federal government to ensure their communities receive proper, equitable funding for fire safety services.

“The human rights complaint and the tragedy in (Kitchenuhmaykoosib Inninuwug) show that serious, ongoing fire safety concerns have been identified and ignored by the federal government,” the group said in a statement.

Indigenous Services Minister Mandy Gull-Masty is expected to address chiefs from northern Ontario during a meeting of Nishnawbe Aski Nation in Toronto on Thursday, where she is scheduled to take questions from chiefs.

She is also expected to announce a $738.9-million funding package for First Nations across the country for health care, governance and emergency management.

A draft news release shared with The Canadian Press shows Gull-Masty is earmarking $55.6 million for building up community preparedness and emergency management co-ordination, which is not directly related to fire management in communities but could help with things like wildfire support.

The First Nations’ submission to the Canadian Human Rights Commission cites staggering statistics: on-reserve First Nations people are 10 times more likely than non-First Nations people to die in a fire, while First Nations children under 10 years old are 86 times more likely to die in a fire than non-First Nations children, according to Statistics Canada.

“The fatal reality is the ‘predictable result of systemic neglect,’” the submission reads, calling it “widespread and long-standing,” compounded by poor housing conditions, overcrowding, and a lack of fire halls and firefighting equipment.

It notes the fly-in community of Kitchenuhmaykoosib Inninuwug has one fire truck — which was privately donated to the community but it lacks the personnel to maintain it — and that a family of five died in the community in 2019.

A family of nine died in another member of the Independent First Nations Alliance, Pikangikum First Nation, in 2016.

Both of those communities are remote, with Kitchenuhmaykoosib Inninuwug located 600 kilometres northwest of Thunder Bay, Ont. The community of 1,500 received $132,000 for fire protection and training from Indigenous Services Canada in 2024-25, while a non-First Nations community some 250 kilometres northwest of Thunder Bay budgeted $360,000 for similar services.

Vernon Morris, the chief executive officer of the Independent First Nations Alliance, says the communities he serves cannot continue to be overlooked.

“The conditions we are seeing today are the result of that ongoing neglect. We cannot accept a system where these risks continue while processes stall and nothing changes,” Morris said.

“There needs to be accountability, and there needs to be action.”

This report by The Canadian Press was first published March 25, 2026.

Alessia Passafiume, The Canadian Press