Alessia Passafiume, The Canadian Press

Applications opened Thursday for a $1-billion federal program to help municipalities and Indigenous communities build critical infrastructure.

The government set aside $1 billion through the Canada Housing Infrastructure Fund in direct funding to communities to build or improve infrastructure to support drinking water, wastewater, stormwater and solid waste.

Applications are available online for municipalities and Indigenous communities. Those applicants will need to demonstrate how their proposals will support the building of more homes.

Residential school survivors are calling on Canada to criminalize residential school denialism, echoing one of the findings in a report about unmarked graves and burial sites associated with the institutions.

Doug George, a survivor of the Mohawk Institute, said Canadians need to acknowledge the schools' place in history and to ensure the children who died are not silenced.

The executive team from the Assembly of First Nations will meet in the coming days to discuss how to proceed with new negotiations for a child welfare reform deal after chiefs voted against the government's proposed $47.8 billion agreement at a meeting in Calgary Thursday.

AFN National Chief Cindy Woodhouse Nepinak, who had helped negotiate the deal and pushed for it to be approved, was blunt in her assessment of the outcome in her closing remarks to the special chiefs assembly Friday.

First Nations chiefs have voted to reject a landmark $47.8-billion child welfare reform deal, reached in July with the Canadian government. 

At a special chiefs assembly in Calgary hosted by the Assembly of First Nations, 267 out of 414 chiefs voted against a resolution in support of the deal after a lengthy debate that at points was emotionally charged as they argued either for or against it.

The national chief of the Assembly of First Nations is urging chiefs to vote in favour of a landmark child welfare deal with Ottawa, saying she doesn't think a better agreement would be possible under a different federal government.

Some chiefs are campaigning to vote down the $47.8-billion child welfare reform agreement at an assembly in Calgary this week.

Emotional mourners gathered by the hundreds in cities across Canada on Sunday to honour the victims of Hamas's Oct. 7 attack on Israel that sparked the still raging war in Gaza and roiled tensions in the Middle East and beyond.

In the nation's capital, a sea of Israeli flags could be seen draped over participants in front of Ottawa City Hall, with Canadian flags waving alongside them as they called for the release of hostages still being held in Gaza.

The smell of sage and sweetgrass floated in the air Monday over a mostly sombre ceremony to reflect on the legacy of residential schools and remember those who survived — and the thousands who didn't.

But amid the more difficult moments at the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation ceremony on Parliament Hill came a few moments of levity and celebration.

"We've got tomorrow, we'll live for a brighter day," sang Diyet & the Love Soldiers, performing their song We're Still Here while dignitaries and children alike got up on their feet and started dancing.

An NDP MP has introduced a bill that would criminalize residential school denialism, saying it would help stop harm caused toward survivors, their families and communities.

If the bill is passed, people could be charged under the Criminal Code for promoting hatred against Indigenous Peoples by condoning, justifying or downplaying the historical and lasting impact of residential schools.

Members of Parliament will hold an emergency debate in the House of Commons Monday evening on a string of recent deaths of First Nations people during interactions with Canadian police forces.

Six First Nations people have died in the last two weeks at the hands of police officers, which NDP MP Lori Idlout characterizes as a "disturbing pattern."

She wrote a letter to House Speaker Greg Fergus calling for the emergency debate, lambasting what she called a lack of media coverage of the deaths and inaction by the government to pass legislation on First Nations policing.

The Assembly of First Nations has postponed a special assembly for chiefs to vote on a landmark child welfare reform deal with Canada due to concerns about the process and a late translation of the document to French.

The Assembly was scheduled to be held in September in Winnipeg, but it will not happen now until October or November, the AFN said Tuesday.