Niki Ashton, NDP MP for Churchill riding, is calling on the federal government to continue to fund the Aboriginal Healing Foundation (AHF) past March 31.
She claims the AHF is the "only source of funding for healing programing aimed at residential school survivors", which deals with how the residential school system continues to affect new generations of aboriginal people in Canada.
Manitoba is the province with the greatest amount of AHS projects - 27 projects in 21 communities, with 18 projects in the North, to be exact. Ashton says these services are multi-faceted, and include counseling, community events and creating public awareness.
"Despite the positive feedback reagarding the AHF's work, the Harper government is failing to commit to the need for healing programming," she says. "The cut of the AHF goes against the spirit of the historic apology made by Stephen Harper and his government in 2008. It goes against the government's commitment to achieving reconciliation."
Ashton says its important to continue AHF programing because she's seen first-hand what it can do for people who are dealing with the repercussions of residential schools.
"I've seen the work being done in communities and I've heard from people. I think that some people think it's just these offices in Ottawa but that's wrong. It's about work. This program believes in working at the grassroots level with survivors, with young people, with communities and as a whole, and I think that really speaks to have effective the program is," she further explains. "The AHF has only been around for 10 years, but all of these programs haven't been it hasn't been long enough to help deal with these things."
The board of directors of the AHF says that the Indian Residential School Settlement Agreement has provided a five year, $125 million commitment to the AHF, which enabled the foundation to extend its funding from March 2007 to March 2010.
