Peter Dinsdale, executive director of the National Association of Friendship Centres, is asking the Tories to increase the $16 million a year his agency receives to disburse among 117 friendship centres across the country...It's difficult to dispute the view that aboriginal Canadians need better support both on and off reserve. And the Liberals deserve nothing but criticism for cutting funding to essential off-reserve resources.
Federal funding for friendship centres was cut under the Liberals to $16 million from $19 million, Dinsdale says. The national association was also excluded from talks that led up to last fall's $5-billion Kelowna agreement to improve housing, education and health services - mostly on reserves.
Dinsdale is cautiously optimistic that the Tories will do more for frequently ignored native people in cities. Conservatives signalled during the recent election that off-reserve communities need more attention.
The Tory platform was short on specifics, however, and Dinsdale has had no luck getting details.
But unfortunately, it seems that the issue is now being set up as an either/or choice, rather than a matter of systematic underfunding. And that could all too likely lead to some of the planned Kelowna funding diverted toward the Cons' urban supporters regardless of the obvious on-reserve need for the resources.
The question now is whether aboriginal leaders, and particularly those who have thrown their support (or at least benefit of the doubt) to Harper, will try to fight for more resources generally, or instead turn predominantly against each other on the assumption that the pie won't be expanded. If aboriginal leaders provide political cover for a strategy which takes away from existing commitments in order to meet new ones, then the consequence will be a worse result for all First Nations than if a united voice highlights the need for increased resources in both areas.
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