2022 Indigenous Connectivity Summit: Calls to Action

Each year, the Indigenous Connectivity Summit (ICS) brings together Indigenous leaders, network operators, and policymakers to nurture a continent-wide community dedicated to enhancing the capacity of Indigenous communities to connect to affordable, sustainable internet on their terms. As part of this effort, each year since the first ICS in 2017, delegates have developed and endorsed a set of recommendations that, if adopted by governments and other stakeholders, will help advance connectivity in Indigenous communities in Canada and the US. The 2022 Indigenous Summit Calls to Action are as follows:

• Digital inequity is the product of colonialism. Therefore, we call on the governments of Canada and the United States to decolonize their respective telecommunications policy processes by creating an indigenous task force on telecommunications.

• Governments should require that projects that use government funds take a First Mile First approach, meaning the project must be designed and implemented with the community end user as the starting point, not the end point.

• We call on the governments of Canada and the United States to strengthen and enforce their existing regulatory mechanisms to hold companies accountable in the event they misuse government funds for telecommunications projects affecting Indigenous territories, or when they are deemed to be not acting in the best interest of the community as determined by local leadership

• We call on the Governments of Canada and the U.S. to acknowledge that Indigenous Peoples have myriad needs for the natural resource called electromagnetic spectrum (“spectrum”), including but not limited to climate change monitoring and modeling, food sovereignty and security, health and safety, especially pertaining to missing and murdered Indigenous people, mental health and wellness, emergency management, education, economic development, revenue, and other priorities.

• We need a multi-faceted workforce development effort to strengthen capacity within communities to achieve digital equity. To that end, we call upon Indigenous/Tribal colleges and community colleges to work with communities and relevant technical organizations to codesign and implement appropriate educational programming that develops the technical capacity of Indigenous people of all ages.