Mary Jane Logan McCallum[i]
Winnipeg Manitoba
Over the past two months, we’ve seen media coverage of federal museum and archives job losses because of the Canada Strong Budget 2025 and its required cutbacks. The loss of capacity within these organizations impacts Indigenous historical research and researchers profoundly. The Canadian Museum of History (CMH) has said that it would be cutting 18% of its permanent workforce as it is required to cut 17.7 million from its budget over the next 4 years.[ii] The CHM is responsible for millions of Indigenous belongings, belongings that make up most of its total collection. Similarly, Library and Archives Canada cut 56 positions,[iii] and 96 employees have reported having received notices that their jobs could be in jeopardy.[iv] We can expect a direct weakening of research access and services as a result.
The President of the Canadian Historical Association (CHA), the Association of Canadian Archivists (ACA), the Canadian Museums Association (CMA), and others have estimated that the impacts of these cuts will be national and generational.[v] While this advocacy is welcome and needed, it also misses an important point in how the federal government’s cuts are being rolled out. Although statements by the CHA, ACA, and CMA suggest that these cuts will impact all people and communities in Canada equally, they will not.
Cuts to positions – and therefore cuts to service to researchers – at Library and Archives Canada and to other heritage institutions have differential impacts on Indigenous people
Because Indigenous people have long been framed under law as a federal government responsibility, our historical research, our ability to trace and understand the experiences of Indigenous people in Canada, will almost always have a heavy federal government records component. The state’s administration of Indigenous lands and affairs has meant that vitally important evidence about our lives, families, and community histories are held by federal government departments in records stored by Library and Archives Canada, including the Departments of Indian Affairs and Health Canada. Such records were foundational to the recent large-scale historical research work of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada (TRC) and the Final Report of the Office of the Special Interlocutor on Missing Children and Unmarked Burials Associated with Indian Residential Schools (OSI). Because of this history, federal government records are critically important not only in class action suits to build collective cases that pursue social justice, including the day school and Indian hospital suits, but also for Indigenous people affected by these institutions to make successful claims.
Indigenous people, as wards of the government, have not always even had access to or been given records that directly involve them. For example, records created by, for, and about First Nations were often given to Indian Agents on their behalf, meaning that Indigenous people have often not even had the opportunity to know about these records and what is in them. And even if Bands did have knowledge of these records, they often did not have the resources to preserve and maintain copies.
On a personal level, Indigenous communities, families, and individuals need respectful access to federal government records for a wide range of reasons that include proving access to basic rights such as Treaty and Band membership, and to related programs. These records may hold the only traces of childhood, including class photos and memories of siblings and friends, that Indian Residential School (IRS) Survivors will ever have. For those families and communities who have lost loved ones, these records may hold the key to locating where a loved one is buried. But while equitable and timely access to federal records is key to vitally important Indigenous historical research, we know that our access is currently neither equitable nor timely. There are already so many Indigenous archives stories that illustrate the obstructions, delays, and opacity of a system that favours certain cultural ways of knowing that are already part of a colonial structure of inequitable historical research.
The Canada Strong Budget 2025 strengthens the Canadian government’s restrictive policies and inequitable practices in Indigenous historical research
In light of this history of colonial governance and record making and record keeping, and of opaque and sometimes impenetrable colonial record management, over which Indigenous people had no control, as well as our already endangered languages and historical knowledge resulting from federal policies of assimilation and elimination, the federal government in fact has a responsibility and obligation to ensure our records are available to us when we need them.
In this context, however, barriers to Indigenous historians are not lifted, but compounded by a range of factors. Funding for programs of research and education remains fragmented, time-limited, and narrow in scope. Indigenous life expectancy remains significantly lower than the non-Indigenous population, with a recent statistic from Alberta Health showing that First Nations lifespan is two decades shorter than other Albertans.[vi] This inequity alone challenges access to history through Elders and older community members, many of whom are also highly invested in gaining access to records regarding the lives and deaths of their own family members. To gain access to critical historical records, Indigenous historians need to become literate in both Indigenous and colonial historical fields – training that is challenging, time consuming, and ongoing.
As ShekonNeechie has attempted to track and demonstrate, there are very few Indigenous people in PhD programs in history and related fields that train individuals in archival research methods and graduate people with skills needed to undertake this kind of research. This underrepresentation makes lack of access to archives even more problematic. With multiple commitments to university, institutional work and community projects and responsibilities, Indigenous historical researchers’ already inadequate resources are stretched even thinner when they are forced to bear the responsibility of tracking, following up, and submitting complaints about lengthy delays for service and additional complex and time-consuming requirements to access our history collected, held, and then restricted by Ottawa. Inevitably, what time we can spend on our actual research is less than that available to researchers in other areas.
The current round of federal government cuts may mean fewer public-facing staff who can advise on access, slower accessioning of Indigenous records, and less granular or robust records descriptions. The OSI’s Final Report on Missing Children and Unmarked Burials Associated with Indian Residential Schools describes a Canadian “culture of impunity” in which a systemic lack of accountability and justice for Indigenous people and denialism about Canada’s role in Indigenous inequity flourish.vi These cuts to federal historical research institutions ensures that culture persists.
[i] With thanks for inspiration and review by Dr. Anne Lindsay and Jill McConkey.
[ii] Ben Andrews, “What will job cuts at war, history museums mean for programming?” Ottawa Citizen 2 February 2026. https://ottawacitizen.com/public-service/canadian-war-history-museums-layoffs Accessed 2 February 2026.
[iii] Josh Pringle, “Library and Archives Canada to cut 56 positions,” CTV News 16 February 2026 https://www.ctvnews.ca/ottawa/article/library-and-archives-canada-to-cut-56-positions/ Accessed 10 March, 2026.
[iv] Changed significantly or terminated. “Federal government job cuts: Here’s what we know,” CBC News Ottawa, 16 January updated 30 January, https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/ottawa/canada-federal-government-public-service-job-cuts-losses-9.7045427 Accessed 10 March, 2026.
[v] Colin M. Coates, President, Canadian Historical Association, Letter to Minister Marc Miller, 12 February 2026, Available at the Canadian Historical Association website, https://cha-shc.ca/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/CHA_Marc-Miller_12-February-2026.pdf Accessed 8 March, 2026; Canadian Museums Association, Letter to the Honourable Francois-Philippe Champagne, Minister of Finance and National Revenue summarized in announcement “Budget 2025 – Museums Left Behind While Government Celebrates Token Tourism Measures,” 6 November, 2025, available at the Canadian Museums Association website: https://www.museums.ca/site/aboutthecma/newsandannouncements/november62025 Accessed 9 March, 2026; The Board of the Association of Canadian Archivists, Letter to Minister Marc Miller, 11 February 2026, available at the Association of Canadian Archivists website, https://archivists.ca/Latest-News-Announcements/13599593 Accessed 9 March, 2026.
[vi] “First Nations life expectancy 19 years lower than other Albertans,” CTV News, 9 February 2025, https://www.ctvnews.ca/canada/article/first-nations-life-expectancy-19-years-lower-than-other-albertans/ Accessed 9 March 2026.