The First Nations Data Governance Strategy (FNDGS, or the Strategy) responds to a complex and evolving digital environment while providing a plausible incremental plan to achieve First Nations data sovereignty that is designed to ensure no First Nation is left behind.
Budget 2018 provided funding to develop the Strategy over three years but, due to the strategic importance of this priority, the state of community readiness, and the advancement of the New Fiscal Relationship between Canada and First Nations, FNIGC and its regional partners completed this work in two years and delivered the Strategy to the Government of Canada in the spring 2020 rather than in 2021.
The Strategy represents a collective vision for the future as articulated by First Nations leadership, rights holders, and data sovereignty experts through a series of engagements that occurred over the course of several years.
It reflects priorities specific to establishing a network of fully functioning, interconnected data and statistical service centres, or Regional Information Governance Centres (RIGCs), and all of the capacities needed to best serve the data and statistical needs of First Nations.