NCTR Welcomes Budget 2026 Bridge Funding and Renews Call for Long Term Support
The National Centre for Truth and Reconciliation (NCTR) welcomes the $5 million in funding for 2027-28 announced in Budget 2026 on November 5. The funding renews support for the NCTR’s core operations and its continued work on Calls to Action 72 and 73.
The Budget’s Impacts Report describes this funding as “providing interim stability while longer-term federal funding requirements to address the legacy of residential schools are assessed.” It recognizes that this work sustains Survivors’ and families’ access to records and supports community-led efforts to identify, commemorate, and investigate missing children and burial sites.
The Impacts Report also recognizes that this work reaches across generations, from aging Survivors to youth, and matters most to those who face the greatest barriers to accessing records and supports, including families with lower incomes and those living in rural and remote communities. It notes that all Canadians benefit from greater public awareness of this history.
This renewal is an important bridge. We look forward to working with Crown-Indigenous Relations and Northern Affairs Canada as longer term needs are assessed, toward the stable, multi-year funding that the NCTR’s permanent mandate requires.
As noted in the National Council for Reconciliation’s Inaugural Annual Report, the NCTR’s work is perpetual, but our funding is not. Long-term funding is critical to ensuring we can focus on our mandate of truth-telling, education, and commemoration rather than securing temporary funding.
As the legacy and permanent repository of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada (TRC), the NCTR continues the work, carrying forward the sacred responsibility that began with Survivors’ testimonies: ensuring that their truths are never silenced, their histories never lost, and their courage never forgotten.
The Centre has safeguarded more than four million archival records, verified the names of thousands of children who never came home, and expanded education programs that have reached millions of educators and learners across the country.
We do this work with and for Survivors. To ensure their truths are preserved, honoured, and shared into the future, the NCTR is building a permanent home that reflects the national and global significance of truth and reconciliation.
Guided by Survivors’ vision, the new home will be a world-class international learning lodge and a lasting place of truth, remembrance, and learning. As a living legacy to Survivors, it will inspire understanding, reflection, and action for generations to come while ensuring the long-term value, purpose, and public impact of the federal government’s $60 million investment in the new Centre.
At a time when our work continues to grow and our reach deepens, our need for sustained, long-term funding is more important than ever. Protecting the integrity of this history requires permanent resources to safeguard these truths and ensure that Canada’s history is never erased, distorted or forgotten.
