Friendship centres to make links

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Friendship centres across Canada - all 115 of them - will be taking on a higher profile as a link between Aboriginal communities and municipalities in the near future.

With the support and encouragement of the Assembly of First Nations, friendship centres are about to increase their co-operation and collaboration with the municipal governments and agencies in urban and rural settings across the country.

In Edmonton on Aug. 13, while addressing mayors from across Canada at the Capital Cities Mayors Conference Assembly of First Nations Grand Chief Phil Fontaine praised the work of friendship centres and encouraged the mayors in attendance to forge stronger relationships with the centres in their municipalities.

Calling it a "renewal" and "a new landscape," Fontaine said Aboriginal people need to focus more attention on working in co-operation with their non-Native neighbors. Friendship centres, "located in practically every urban centre in Canada," Fontaine said, are the obvious choice as linking tools between the two cultures.

With Aboriginal population in urban cities growing sharply, and with many rural municipalities neighboring First Nations or Metis settlements, friendship centres are an important link.

Fontaine said negotiations have been held between the Assembly and the National Association of Friendship Centres "that will see the friendship centres offer their resources in a liaison capacity between municipal and regional authorities and the First Nation residents of urban areas, " he said, adding that the co-operation can only lead to a better future. "Dialogue and partnership with a firm commitment to positive and constructive mutual endeavors based on the values of respect and sharing are the key to peace, stability and opportunity for the future."

From his Winnipeg office, Wayne Helgason, the president of the National Association of Friendship Centres, said the centres have been the hub of Aboriginal activity in communities for 40 years, since the first ones were set up in Winnipeg, Toronto and Vancouver.

Helgason said recent comments made by Fontaine, and a resolution by the delegates attending a national chiefs' summit in March of this year, identify a strong need to expand the role of the friendship centre in their communities.

Helgason said the friendship centres' 3,000 staff members and 1,000 volunteer board members across the country are fixtures in most communities and already have the knowledge to expand on their role as a liaison between Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal people.

"The utilization of resources that are already there is the thought behind all this," he said.

With the increased focus and emphasis on working with other groups, Helgason said many concerns or issues facing Aboriginal or non-Aboriginal people can be dealt with more efficiently.

"Striving for positive and constructive ideas jointly will put solution onto the fast-track," he said.

The future role of the friendship centres will add to the increasing numbers of agreements and joint relationships which have been growing sharply between Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal governments in the last few years.

In his speech to the mayors, Fontaine said more than 100 Canadian municipal governments are currently working with First Nation governments. There are also more than 80 municipal governments and 100 First Nations have collaborated to define more than 200 service agreements to date. The agreements include housing, fire protection and policing. In that last two years, Fontaine said more than 50 municipalities have developed more than 120 formal political protocols with more than 115 First Nations or Aboriginal groups and agencies. Those protocols include joint council meetings and establishing conflict resolution procedures.

In the next two to three years, the agreements and partnerships between Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal communities can only grow, especially with the use of the friendship centres as central sources of contact, sad Fontaine.