[Indigsol] Urgent Action needed to reinstate Aboriginal Healing Foundation Funding

Tue Mar 16 18:35:02 PDT 2010

Hi Everyone,

An urgent action is needed! Please sign this online petition to be
presented to the Prime Minister, Stephen Harper supporting the
reinstatement of funds to the Aboriginal Healing Foundation.
http://www.petitiononline.com/fundAHF/petition.html

The funding cuts to the Aboriginal Healing Foundation will have critical
impacts on 134 communities across Canada, that provide culturally
appropriate services to Indigenous peoples, especially Aboriginal women
and children, who have suffered from violence, addiction, homelessness,
and the impact of the residential school legacy.

Please read the article below and follow
http://ineedhealing.wordpress.com/ for updates. Thanks.

Massive cuts to the Aboriginal Healing Foundation: Canada’s hypocrisy is
hard to digest
http://www.missingjustice.ca/2010/03/massive-cuts-to-the-aboriginal-healing-foundation-but-really-canada-you-are-such-a-hypocrite/

Published: March 15, 2010

There was a Q&A period between Michael Ignatieff and various
representatives of women’s orgs in Montreal today, a Women’s Policy
meeting. He was basically spouting a lot of @##%^^ about a lot things: how
Canada has been standing by Haiti for decades, how Canada is a leading
example in terms of peacekeeping, etc. I tried to ask a question numerous
times, but was not called upon. A couple of questions were asked about
First Nations women, one of which was by Nakuset, executive director of
the NWSM asking that Ignatieff bring the Shelter’s case to parliament,
because if the funding cuts take effect (starting March 31st), than 3 key
employees at the Shelter will lose their jobs, 2 of which are Native
women, and many women will lose access to the services now provided. The
Shelter has been receiving funds for the last 10 years and did not expect
them to be cut at all. They found out about the cuts by looking on the
budget website.

Basically what the Harper government has done is massively cut the
Aboriginal Healing Foundation (AHF), which accounts for about a 1/3 of the
funds that the NWSM requires to provide services to Native women in
Montreal. Not only is this huge, but as a result of across-the-board cuts
to the AHF, 134 community projects across Canada will no longer provide
cultural healing services to Indigenous people.

Ignatieff said he would bring up the NWSM’s request to reinstate their
funding at parliament next week. But–he also said that he would not call
for a public inquiry into the hundreds of unsolved cases; instead, he said
he supported a “national investigation” that would better provide
individual families with forensics information. When asked if that meant
he did not believe an actual inquiry was necessary to look into the
endemic racism present in Canadian society, he said only that he was
ashamed that there are over 500 of such cases in Canada.

I interviewed and spoke to Nakuset after the event, and will be in touch
with her again in the near future.

March 31st is very soon, and if the NWSM does get their funding back
(fingers crossed!), there are also 134 other orgs facing the same loss. I
am thinking: Emergency Demo, denouncing the government’s hypocrisy (The
$199 million promised to address the legacy of residential schools has not
been committed to the AHF, and similarly, the $10 million ambiguously
allotted to addressing the problem of missing and murdered Indigenous
women has not been committed to NWAC’s Sister’s in Spirit campaign, to my
knowledge). I would like to speak more with Nakuset about what they feel
is a good course of action over the next 2 weeks, but their briefing does
indicate that they want to network with the other 134 groups.

Missing Justice (missingjustice.ca) is thinking on organizing (or
co-organizing) a demo before the 31st if the NWSM approves, and if this
occurs, we will need to make as much use of our diversity of networks as
possible. I really feel strongly that this is outrageous and scandalous
and deserves to be treated as such.

The 134 projects to have their AHF funding cut: click here to see list
http://www.ahf.ca/pages/download/28_13395

More news:

Native women's shelter asks Libs to push for funding
http://montreal.ctv.ca/servlet/an/local/CTVNews/20100314/mtl_native_100313/20100314/?hub=MontrealHome

NIKI ASHTON APPEALS TO PRIME MINISTER TO SAVE ABORIGINAL HEALING
FOUNDATION
http://www.firstperspective.ca/index.php/component/content/article/25-releases/157-niki-ashton-appeals-to-prime-minister-to-save-aboriginal-healing-foundation

Funding for Aboriginal Healing Foundation to end
http://www.cbc.ca/canada/north/story/2010/03/15/aboriginal-healing-foundation-funding-cut.html

Aboriginal Healing Foundation to lose its funding
http://www.firstperspective.ca/index.php/jobs/143-aboriginal-healing-foundation-to-lose-its-funding

First Nations and Innu communities criticized the budget for eliminating 
the Aboriginal Healing Program, which provided essential funding for
various health and social service initiatives across Canada.
http://www.cbc.ca/canada/north/story/2010/03/05/sk-aboriginal-healing-foundation.html

In Solidarity
IPSMO
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