Thank you to the Board of Directors of the Port Alberni Friendship Centre for taking time last month to bring me up to date on its work and challenges faced by this important institution in our community. Friendship Centres are home-away-from-home for many Indigenous people who have settled in urban areas to go to school or work or because there isn’t sufficient housing in their home communities.
Governments rely on Friendship Centres to provide important social services which, in the case of Port Alberni, includes a childcare centre, tiny homes, a shelter and recreational and social services for families and Elders, all of which are culturally-based.
In spite of this reliance on Friendship Centres to provide these services, they have always been chronically underfunded by the federal government. Operational and program funding is provided through contribution agreements which are often renewed just weeks before their expiry—sometimes, many weeks following their expiry. Although the Port Alberni Friendship Centre has an exemplary record of responsible fiscal management, it struggles to provide assurance of continued employment to its staff because of the government’s refusal to enter into longer term agreements.
In the coming weeks, I will work with Jagmeet Singh and the NDP critic on Indigenous Crown Relations, MP Lori Idlout, to advance the objectives of the National Association of Friendship Centres to secure funding that addresses rising costs and addresses the restrictive terms and conditions of funding agreements with the government along with the need for flexibility to address the needs of individual Friendship Centres.
