OTTAWA—The federal government is pumping more money into its marquee push for Indigenous reconciliation, pledging another $4.8 billion in this year’s budget on job training, health, children’s services, housing and clean drinking water for Canada’s Indigenous people.

The new money will roll out over the next five years and comes after Ottawa’s Liberal government already earmarked an unprecedented $11.8 billion in long-term spending for First Nations, Métis and Inuit communities in its 2016 and 2017 budgets.

“The most important way in which our future needs to be better than our past has to do with the relationship between Canada and Indigenous peoples,” Finance Minister Bill Morneau told the House of Commons as he tabled the government’s 2018 spending plan Tuesday.

“We have a responsibility to do better and to do more.”

The biggest chunk of the new money — $2 billion over five years — is slated to fund a revamped Indigenous jobs training program that will focus on helping people find high-quality, well-paying employment instead of prioritizing quick re-entry into the workforce, the budget says. In this way, the government is promising to help 15,000 Indigenous workers find jobs.

Another $1.5 billion will go toward Indigenous health services over the next five years. This includes $498 million to increase access to critical care and establishing 24-hour nursing services in remote communities, as well as $200 million for addictions treatment.

The budget also includes a $1.4 billion infusion of cash for First Nations child and family services, an area where the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal has repeatedly ruled that the federal government is discriminating against Indigenous kids by underfunding services. The new funding is aimed to support single mothers and children in foster care, while also improving services in Indigenous communities so fewer children are removed from their homes and placed in foster care.

More than half the 29,000 kids in private foster care are Indigenous, despite the fact that First Nations, Métis and Inuit children make up less than 8 per cent of kids in Canada, the budget says.

Perry Bellegarde, the national chief of the Assembly of First Nations, said this money means that the federal government has “fully implemented” its obligations under the orders from the human rights tribunal.

“That’s huge for our people,” he said, adding that the skills program will result in “huge return on investments for the future,” given that Indigenous people are the fastest growing segment of the population.

“It’s moving in the right direction. We see that. But the needs are huge.”

Other measures for Indigenous people include another $173 million on top of $1.8 billion already pledged to eliminate all drinking water advisories on reserves by March 2021 and an additional $144 million for the government’s ongoing strategy to repair and construct new housing units for Indigenous people.

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Another $613 million is earmarked over the next five years to support Indigenous communities in negotiations with Ottawa to reach new treaties and self-determination agreements, as well as support First Nations’ institutions, administrative capacity and financial management.

Since taking power in 2015, Justin Trudeau’s Liberal government has placed reconciliation between Ottawa and Canada’s Indigenous people in the upper rung of its priorities. Last summer, the government dissolved the department of Indigenous and Northern Affairs and replaced it with two new entities: Indigenous Services and Crown-Indigenous Relations and Northern Affairs.

It has also emphasized a devolution of authority for health, education and other services to Indigenous communities, and Trudeau recently announced the start of consultations to create a new framework to ensure that Ottawa recognizes the constitutional and treaty rights of Indigenous people.

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