A new plan aims to overhaul how the province responds to complaints from First Nations, giving communities a stronger voice, as crises persist from long-term boil-water advisories to overcrowded jails
Jon Thompson
March 24 2026
Ricochet
In the final two weeks of Paul Dubé’s decade-long tenure as Ontario’s ombudsman, he delivered its first Indigenous Services Plan — a promise to improve cultural competency and transform how complaints create systemic change.
Those he consulted to write the plan are cautiously optimistic.
“When we have the privilege to occupy these positions for however long we have them, we have a moral duty, we have a moral imperative to address some of these issues,” Dubé said of the five-year “herculean” process. “And as I look over the landscape of Ontario, I saw no more pressing issue than to contribute to reconciliation and get things moving, in whatever way we can.”
His plan proposes “proactive ombudsmanship,” a commitment to take complaints and other intelligence directly from First Nations people, leaders, and organizations to the relevant provincial agencies.
“We don’t want any more meetings. We want action plans, we want something for the community to prosper. Is the ombudsman going to strengthen our advocacy?… What is he going to do?”
Under the old process, the office passively waited for complaints to build a body of evidence that would illustrate systemic problems. The office would then launch an investigation, which would result in recommendations the government may accept.
The new approach would instead bypass those investigations, engage First Nations leaders, and give relevant ministries the opportunity to address complaints or fix systemic concerns before they even appear in annual reports.
Ombudsman staff is currently compiling contact information for every First Nation chief, councillor and advocacy organization in the province, but Dubé left the choice to his successor whether or not the office will carry individual complaints forward through those channels or arrange for a formal Indigenous advisory committee.
“It got to the point, I think, where we had to demonstrate our value and prove ourselves a little bit with some of the work we did, especially in children and youth care. Once we had some reports and investigations to show we had services to offer, we started getting a bit more traction.”
The plan is partly informed by Dubé’s 2024 and 2025 visits to Asupeeschoseewagong Netum Anishinabek (Grassy Narrows) and Neskantaga First Nations. He called conditions in Neskantaga “unsafe and unacceptable,” including Canada’s longest boil-water advisory at over 31 years, a condemned health centre, a dysfunctional arena, a school stretched beyond its means, and a youth suicide epidemic that has endured a generation.
The priority for Neskantaga’s leaders is the water treatment plant, which has never pumped potable water in the three decades since Canada razed nearly every building at the Lansdowne House site and moved the entire community upriver to its current location.
Neskantaga’s leaders have insisted that “genocide” conditions be fixed before any conversation about mining can begin.
Designs are in the approval stage for a new plant but councillor Coleen Moonias says she hasn’t heard from the federal government in over two years. Moonias expects Dubé’s successor will follow up with the issues he identified in her community, but wants to see concrete results the chief and council can bring back to their members.
“We don’t want any more meetings. We want action plans, we want something for the community to prosper,” Moonias explains. “Is the ombudsman going to strengthen our advocacy? How is he going to say, ‘Let’s be fair to these Indigenous communities?’ What is he going to do?”
That question of fairness has transformed urgently since Neskantanga’s leaders have taken a firm stand on the Ring of Fire, nearby mineral deposits that Ontario and Canada intend to develop into the largest mining project in the country’s history.
“Unfortunately, the Euro-Canadian system continues to fail the First Nation citizens of this province, especially if you’re living in a remote community.
Neskantaga’s leaders have insisted that “genocide” conditions be fixed before any conversation about mining can begin. Moonias says conversations about rights, treaty and infrastructure are being eclipsed by mining. She’s wondering if Ontario will empower the ombudsman’s office to help her withstand the pressure the province itself is putting on her.
“Our community is pretty cautious of our next steps. Everything that’s developing around us, our membership knows it’s coming,” she says. “Everything we’re being asked to partner in – transmission lines, tables, broadbands, roads – everything seems to be initiated through the Ring of Fire.
“The Ring of Fire is making these things fast-tracked. This is the mentality of people that it’s going to come anyway and everything we do now is always going to be something to do with the Ring of Fire.”
Nowhere is the Ontario ombudsman’s work expanding so quickly as behind bars, and that disproportionately affects Indigenous people.
Dubé’s annual report revealed that complaints over conditions in correctional facilities rose 55 per cent this year to 6,870. Frequent complaints included inadequate health care, cell overcrowding, solitary confinement, a high frequency of lockdowns, and staff violence.
It’s an issue Dubé’s says, “raises serious questions about human rights.”
According to Statistics Canada, Ontario incarcerates Indigenous adults at a rate more than eight times higher than non-Indigenous adults, including jailing Indigenous women at a rate 16 times higher than their population share.
Anna Betty Achneepineskum is the Deputy Grand Chief of Nishnawbe Aski Nation. She lobbies on behalf of 49 First Nations chiefs, whose mostly fly-in First Nations are signatory to Treaty 9 and 5 in northern Ontario.
“It’s a foreign institution to us,” she said of the ombudsman’s office’s historical absence with northern Ontario First Nations people and communities. “Whether we’re dealing with injustices in the health care system, they never were involved in the Seven Youth Inquest – and part of that was our fault, too. We never did reach out to them.”
Dubé’s staff has accepted NAN’s invitation to work on anti-Indigenous systemic issues at the Geraldton District Hospital, 250 kilometres east of Thunder Bay, which serves mostly members of surrounding, road-access First Nations. Achneepineskum believes help is needed throughout the legal system.
She sees the legal system pulling particularly young people out of northern communities into Kenora, Timmins, and Thunder Bay for court and jail. Then judges are citing the lack of safety or support infrastructure in their home communities as justification for remand.
She says courts are condemning NAN members to jail or releasing them into the streets of these municipalities, while transitional housing and Gladue report processes are ill-equipped to handle the volume of First Nations people that are being pushed through the system. While she says she would sit on an advisory committee if it was curated with care and impacted policy meaningfully, she also emphasizes the importance of making those complaint services available directly to those who need them most.
“There needs to be more education and awareness because a lot of individuals, they don’t understand there are resources there to help them protect their rights,” Achneepineskum says. “Unfortunately, the Euro-Canadian system continues to fail the First Nation citizens of this province, especially if you’re living in a remote community. Not only do we have to contend with being treated differently as First Nation citizens, but you’re even lower on the scale in terms of receiving equitable justice if you live in a remote community.”
