Executive summary

This fifth annual progress report under the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples Act (UN Declaration Act) covers the 2025–26 fiscal year and marks the midpoint of the 2023–2028 Action Plan. This report serves to highlight work federal departments and Indigenous partners are advancing together to achieve the objectives of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UN Declaration). It is an important tool for ensuring accountability for the commitments made in the Action Plan. This year, two overarching themes emerged from the information collected as part of the report: 1) adapting implementation during a year of governmental transition and external pressures and 2) managing the complexity of a highly ambitious Action Plan with 181 measures that require coordination across many departments and with diverse Indigenous nations, governments, and organizations.

The report highlights how government departments are ensuring consistency with the UN Declaration in federal law-making. These consistency analyses are supported by Justice Canada’s Interim Guide for Officials on How to Assess Consistency with the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, and by new internal tools and processes in departments across the Government of Canada. Annex C: Section 5 Consistency assessments of Laws and Regulations provides more detailed information about how departments and agencies are ensuring laws and regulations are consistent with the UN Declaration. Indigenous partners acknowledge these efforts but call for clearer, more transparent approaches to assessing and reporting on consistency with the UN Declaration.

On Action Plan implementation, there continues to be steady, if uneven, progress. While there have been important achievements this year such as the establishment of the UN Declaration Action Plan Advisory Committee (APAC), support for Indigenous health priorities, and investments in Indigenous-led area-based conservation, other Action Plan measures (APMs) are progressing at a slower pace. Indigenous partners and government departments and agencies continue to work through these challenges together. The associated opportunities related to coordination, capacity, reporting and other elements of implementation are valuable considerations as work to implement the Action Plan continues.