Page - 391 - in VULNERABLE - The Law, Policy and Ethics of COVID-19

391Systemic Discrimination in Government Services and Programs and Its Impact on… hand sanitizer, and personal protective equipment. As pointed out by experts, however, these investments represent less than 1% of the fed- eral government’s COVID-19 funding, although First Nations Peoples account for nearly 5% of the population of Canada.32 Put more sim- ply, the measures fail to achieve even the modest standard of formal equality. While Canada has yet to reveal any specific plan of action for responding to the threat of COVID-19 on reserves, the approach it has adopted thus far has generally been to replicate measures put in place elsewhere in the country.33 Currently, the federal government has yet to take any measure aimed at addressing the systemic inequal- ities that cause First Nations communities to be disproportionately impacted by SARS-CoV-2. As Dr. Bryce pointed out 113 years ago, effective public health care responses for First Nations must include remedial measures and substantive equality in the provision of public services. One without the other will fail. For decades, Canada has known about the inequities in the funding of services and programs for First Nations peoples, but has failed to act. Instead, it has repeated the same refrain: addressing these inequities will take time. It has implored First Nations peoples to be patient as incremental changes are made to the inequitable fund- ing formulas of the services they receive from government. In Caring  Society  v  Canada, the CHRT has ruled that it is unlawful for Canada to put financial considerations ahead of the best interests of First Nations children. The decision echoed what First Nations peoples had been saying for a long time: that discrimination as a fiscal policy is the man- ifestation of embedded racism and colonialism in Canadian society.34 The Government of Canada’s same old assertion that it cannot afford substantive equality for First Nations Peoples is particularly uncon- scionable in these circumstances. If there is one thing we have learned from Canada’s response to this crisis, it is that various levels of gov- ernment can act swiftly to deliver billions of dollars’ worth of social 32. See Blackstock and Day, supra note 27; Pasternak and Houle, supra note 14. 33. “Indigenous Services Canada’s preparedness and response to COVID-19” (last visited 16 May 2020), online: Indigenous  Services  Canada <www.sac-isc.gc.ca/eng/ 1584456952392/1584456999460>. 34. Anna Stanley, “Indigenous children and racial discrimination as fiscal policy” (25 May 2016), online (blog): Broadbent Institute <www.broadbentinstitute.ca/ annastanley/indigenous_children_racial_discrimination_fiscal_policy>; Pamela Palmater, Indigenous  Nationhood:  Empowering  Grassroots  Citizens (Halifax: Fernwood Publishing, 2015); Shiri Pasternak, “The Fiscal Body of Sovereignty: To ‘Make Live’ in Indian Country” (2015) 6:4 Settler Colonial Studies 317.