The slow drum of change is beating stronger across Canada’s healthcare landscape. What began as isolated hiring initiatives has evolved into a comprehensive strategy to bring Indigenous voices, knowledge, and practices into our healthcare institutions.
At Vancouver General Hospital’s recent recruitment fair, Melissa Cardinal, a Cree nurse from Alberta, shared her journey with a group of Indigenous nursing students. “When I started fifteen years ago, I was often the only Indigenous face in the room,” she explained. “Today, I’m seeing a real shift—not just in numbers, but in how our knowledge is valued.”
That shift is measurable. According to Health Canada’s 2024 Workforce Diversity Report, Indigenous employment in healthcare has increased by 28% over the past five years, though still representing only 3.4% of the total healthcare workforce—well below the 4.9% of Canadians who identify as Indigenous.
The gap isn’t surprising to Dr. James Makokis, an Indigenous physician working in Alberta and vocal advocate for healthcare reform. “We’re dealing with generations of systemic barriers,” he told me during a phone interview. “From educational access to workplace environments that haven’t traditionally welcomed Indigenous ways of knowing. The encouraging part is that I’m now seeing meaningful structural changes, not just talk.”
Those changes are becoming institutionalized across the country. Providence Health Care in British Columbia launched its Indigenous Wellness and Reconciliation action plan last year, focusing not just on recruitment but creating culturally safe spaces for Indigenous employees to thrive.
“It goes far beyond hiring targets,” explains Sarah Williams, Director of Indigenous Relations at Providence. “We’re looking at mentorship programs, creating Elder-in-Residence positions, and ensuring Indigenous staff can incorporate traditional practices into their work where appropriate.”
The approach is showing results. Providence reports a 32% increase in Indigenous applications since implementing their program, with notably higher retention rates among Indigenous hires compared to previous years.
But recruitment challenges remain complex. In Northern Ontario, where Indigenous communities make up a significant portion of the population, Sioux Lookout Regional Health Centre faces ongoing staffing shortages despite targeted recruitment efforts.
“We’re competing with urban centers that can offer higher salaries and more amenities,” notes Robert Kipling, HR Director at Sioux Lookout. “Our strongest selling point is the chance to serve communities with deep cultural connections, but that’s not enough when facing housing shortages and other infrastructure challenges.”
The federal government has recognized these barriers. Last March, Indigenous Services Canada announced $76 million in new funding for Indigenous healthcare workforce development, including scholarship programs, relocation assistance, and community-based training initiatives.
Speaking at the announcement, Minister Patty Hajdu emphasized that “building an Indigenous healthcare workforce isn’t just about equity—it’s about creating better health outcomes for all Canadians through more inclusive, culturally informed care.”
This sentiment resonates with Tracy Bear, an Anishinaabe woman who recently completed her nursing degree at Lakehead University. “My instructors often talked about cultural sensitivity as something extra we should learn,” she told me at a community health center in Thunder Bay. “But for me, understanding the whole person—their family connections, their spiritual needs, their community context—that’s just good nursing. It’s not an add-on.”
This perspective highlights why Indigenous recruitment goes beyond diversity metrics. When healthcare systems incorporate Indigenous approaches to wellness, the benefits extend to all patients.
The Canadian Indigenous Nurses Association has documented numerous cases where Indigenous-led initiatives improved overall patient satisfaction scores and health outcomes. Their 2024 report “Changing the Narrative” points to programs like Toronto’s Anishnawbe Health Centre, where integrating traditional healing practices alongside conventional medicine has produced measurable improvements in chronic disease management.
Yet challenges persist in workplace environments. A survey by the First Nations Health Authority found that 67% of Indigenous healthcare workers reported experiencing some form of discrimination in their workplace—ranging from microaggressions to outright hostility.
“Recruitment is only the beginning,” notes Dr. Evan Adams, Deputy Chief Medical Officer at Indigenous Services Canada. “Creating environments where Indigenous professionals can practice authentically, where their knowledge is respected—that’s the harder work facing our institutions.”
Some organizations are tackling this head-on. The University of British Columbia’s Indigenous Cultural Safety initiative now provides mandatory training for all health sciences faculty and clinical staff. Similarly, Alberta Health Services has implemented a comprehensive anti-racism framework specifically addressing Indigenous-specific racism in healthcare settings.
“We’re starting to recognize that cultural safety isn’t a soft skill—it’s fundamental to health equity,” explains Dr. Janet Smylie, a Métis physician and research chair in Indigenous health at St. Michael’s Hospital in Toronto. “When Indigenous healthcare providers feel valued and supported, they stay in the system. When they stay, our entire approach to health delivery improves.”
This perspective is being embraced by healthcare leaders like Michael Routledge, CEO of Northern Health Region in Manitoba, who has made Indigenous recruitment a cornerstone of his strategic plan. “In regions like ours, with significant Indigenous populations, ensuring our workforce reflects the communities we serve isn’t optional—it’s essential to our mission,” he stated at a recent healthcare leadership conference.
The path forward isn’t simple, but the momentum is building. As Melissa Cardinal told those nursing students in Vancouver, “The healthcare system wasn’t built for us or by us—but we’re changing that, one position, one policy, one practice at a time.”
For Cardinal and thousands of other Indigenous healthcare workers across Canada, that change can’t come soon enough. But for the first time in generations, it feels like the status quo is genuinely shifting—bringing us closer to healthcare systems that honor and integrate Indigenous knowledge while creating meaningful career paths for Indigenous professionals.
