JORDAN’S PRINCIPLE
Issue 1 2026 – Chiefs of Ontario Advocate magazine 
26  l
Jordan’s Principle
Program implementation and the gaps still 
persisting today
D
espite federal commit-
ments to ensure First 
Nations children can access 
health, social and educa-
tional supports without delay, gaps in 
implementation continue to shape how 
Jordan’s Principle is experienced on  
the ground.
Jordan River Anderson, a young 
boy from Norway House Cree Nation 
in Manitoba, was born in 1999 with 
multiple disabilities. In 2005, he died 
in hospital while waiting for at-home 
health services, as the federal and 
provincial governments fought over 
who was responsible for paying. Jordan’s 
Principle, a legal order resulting from a 
Canadian Human Rights Tribunal case, 
was named in his memory. It was created 
to ensure First Nations children are not 
denied support because of their identity. 
It also aimed to reflect the distinct 
circumstances and needs of First Nations 
children, and to ensure they receive 
health, social and educational supports 
without delays caused by jurisdictional 
disputes. However, new policies, 
administrative barriers and stagnant 
funding continue to present challenges in 
how the program is implemented  
and accessed.
Lyndia Jones is the director of health 
for the Independent First Nations (IFN), 
a collection of Nations working together 
on shared priorities, joint funding 
opportunities and combined expertise 
to support their communities. Speaking 
about the implementation of Jordan’s 
Principle, she says, “We were the first 
ones off the ground in an Ontario region 
to have navigators, which they call service 
coordinators or focal points. One of the 
big jobs is getting out there to our IFN 
communities, to families, looking at how 
to assist them with applications and what 
kinds of things they need to include in 
the application.” The IFN hired two 
navigators in early 2017 and, following 
their success in supporting families with 
applications and access, began training 
other First Nations across the region. The 
organization held two Jordan’s Principle 
training sessions and a regional session 
with the Chiefs of Ontario (COO).
Jones notes that a challenge for 
families today is that, while community 
workers used to complete third-party 
letters, Indigenous Services Canada 
(ISC) now requires those letters from 
registered licensed professionals, and not 
all First Nations have those professionals 
in their communities. “And if families 
have to access them, they’re paying out 
of pocket,” Jones notes. “When you go 
to one of your doctors and you say, ‘I 
need a letter for da, da, da,’ it costs you, 
right? So just as any parent, it costs you 
BY NIKITA DAY
for those letters, and that’s where they’re 
at.” Jones says this requirement has 
created additional barriers for families, 
particularly in communities where 
licensed professionals are not consistently 
available, meaning families often have 
to seek documentation elsewhere and 
absorb the cost themselves in order to 
complete applications.
While the IFN still has two 
navigators, service coordination has been 
reduced across the country. Jones recalls 
early concerns about payment timing 
after navigators were introduced: “When 
we had our navigators on the ground 
first in the region, one of the things that 
we noticed was the payments. Once our 
children were getting approved for the 
types of services and supports, payments 
weren’t coming as fast.” Jones believes 
that the impact of these delays is quite 
significant, adding that some families 
turned away from Jordan’s Principle 
applications altogether because they 
were unable to wait through prolonged 
backlogs in approvals and payments.
In 2018, ISC suggested that the IFN 
take on part of the approvals process – an 
idea that IFN leadership rejected. “Our 
leadership at the time said […] we’re 
not going to be saying yay or nay to our 
own people,” Jones says. “Furthermore, 
these are legal orders, and you have a 
responsibility to those legal orders.” 
Instead, the IFN agreed to act as a 
payer – once services were approved by 
ISC, the organization issued payments 
to families and service providers. This 
arrangement has been in place since June 
2018, and Jones believes this shift helped 
ensure families were not left waiting for 
support after approvals, as payments 
could be issued more directly through 
IFN than through relying on federal 
processing timelines.
However, Jones also notes that new 
pressures have now emerged in how 
“Jordan’s Principle has to 
be broad enough that it 
reaches children both on 
and off reserve.”
– Lyndia Jones

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