Indigenous Services Canada

Indigenous Services Canada (ISC; French: Services aux Autochtones Canada; SAC) is one of two departments in the Government of Canada with responsibility for policies relating to Indigenous peoples in Canada (the other being Crown–Indigenous Relations and Northern Affairs Canada). ISC's mandate is to work "collaboratively with partners to improve access to high quality services for First Nations, Inuit and Métis."

The department was created in 2019 following the dissolution of the Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development. ISC is responsible to Parliament through the minister of Indigenous services (Mandy Gull-Masty since 2025). While the minister is head of the department, and provides policy/political direction, the day-to-day operations of the department are managed by the deputy minister (currently Michelle Kovacevic), who is a public servant. Its headquarters is in Terrasses de la Chaudière, in downtown Gatineau, Quebec.

In August 2017, the Trudeau ministry announced the dissolution of the Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development and announced that it would be replaced by the Department of Indigenous Services and the Department of Crown-Indigenous Relations and Northern Affairs. This came into effect as of July 15, 2019. The transition was not instantaneous, with Orders-in-Council initially separating the portfolios, and formal legislation constituting the new departments being passed in July 2019.

According to Trudeau, the rationale behind the restructuring was that "the structures in place at Indigenous and Northern Affairs Canada were created at a time where the approach around the Indian Act, the approach around our engagement with indigenous peoples, was very much looked at in a paternalistic, colonial way". The new departments are consistent with the 1996 Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples' recommendations to improve the delivery of services dramatically and fast-track self-government.

By January 2012, there were two government audits that revealed that the federal government had earmarked about a billion dollars annually on constructing and/or maintaining First Nations infrastructure in First Nations communities.

"Findings from the "AFN First Nations Regional Longitudinal Health Survey 2002/2003 study (March 2007) are notable: More than 1/5 of adult respondents report that they have no access to garbage collection services; Nine percent of homes do not have either sewage service or a septic tank; and Only 2/3 of respondents considered their water safe to drink: Over 60 percent of respondents obtain their drinking water from bottled water. To cite a 2003 INAC study, 39 percent of water systems exceeded one or more of the risk indicator thresholds occasionally or continuously. Among key informants, there was unanimous consensus that there is a clear infrastructure deficit on reserve and in the different categories, according to the community; investment needed in housing, school, water facilities, and roads were usually mentioned as examples."

Community Infrastructure $1.028 billion

FNIF $234 million (lifespan)