First Nations Demand Auditor General Investigate, As Second Fire Hits Grieving Community
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Posted by Shelby Percival
- Posted in BlogsNews
Pictured above: Chief Donny Morris (Kitchenuhmaykoosib Inninuwug), whose five-year-old grandson tragically died last week in a house fire. Chief Morris is among a group of Chiefs urgently calling on the federal Auditor General to investigate the slow-walking of a pending human rights complaint by the Canadian Human Rights Commission.
In the wake of last week’s tragic death of a First Nations child, the Independent First Nations Alliance (IFNA) is urgently requesting that the Auditor General of Canada investigate the Canadian Human Rights Commission’s slow-walking of its pending human rights complaint regarding fire safety.
The filing with the Auditor General comes just as the grieving community of Kitchenuhmaykoosib Inninuwug endured yet another fire over the weekend, destroying a home but, thankfully, resulting in no injuries.
IFNA’s human rights complaint, filed in August 2025, has languished for seven months despite the Commission’s promise to prioritize “ongoing, severe” matters. In its complaint, IFNA outlines decades of chronic underfunding and requests ignored by the federal government for measures to address a long-running fire safety crisis in IFNA communities. As outlined in the complaint, a First Nations child is eighty-six times more likely to die in a house fire than a non-Indigenous child.
Shortly after last week’s child fatality, of the five-year-old grandson of Kitchenuhmaykoosib Inninuwug chief Donny Morris, the IFNA Chiefs adopted a resolution condemning the Commission’s inaction, and urging the Auditor General to exercise its powers to audit the Commission. To date, no response has been received from the Commission, or from the Auditor General’s office.
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