Budget cuts show lack of regard for Native programs

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Money talks. In fact, if often says things that people themselves are reluctant or unable to say.

And during this, the United Nations' International Year of the World's Indigenous People, the dollars and cents being sucked out of Native coffers to be put back into Canada's federal reserves are speaking volumes.

Ottawa appears ready to celebrate the occasion by cutting the throat of Native culture.

The federal government announced late last month that it is cutting back funding for Native programs by 10 per cent. The reduction comes as a result of Finance Minister Don Mazankowski's December mini-budget. The feds want to take funding from some social program to help pay down government debt.

Millions of dollars for friendship centres, northern broadcast programs, reserve capital costs, Native political organizations and economic development have suddenly disappeared into the vortex of Ottawa's overspending.

The Canadian Aboriginal Economic Development Strategy, a program shared

by the departments of Indian Affairs, Health and Welfare, and Science and Technology, was cut $20 million. Capital facilities, the money given out to bands to deal with infrastructure, dropped by $16 million (ironically, rejuvenating the country's infrastructure is a big part of Mazankowski's plan to stimulate economic growth.)

The National Association of Friendship Centres and the Northern Native Broadcast Access Program, both funded through the Secretary of State, lose a few million dollars between them. Both institutions are now facing their second major funding crisis in the last three years.

The decisions to slash funding to social programs should come as no surprise to anyone familiar with government thinking. Education, health care and social services are the holy Trinity of government cutbacks - they are always the first departments to suffer when the budget's not big enough.

For its part, the government is putting on a brave face. The Department of Indian Affairs said the cuts to economic development would only be seven - not 10 - per cent

and still represented a "significant investment in the future of Aboriginal people and their community."

These cuts aren't simply threatening Native business. The suffering will be felt most acutely within the Native cultural community. Friendship centres, which primarily serve urban Native populations with programs like day care, translation and interpretation and counselling, will not be able to offer the same level of service.

The broadcast access program, established a decade ago to help preserve Native culture in the North with educational and language programming, now faces dissolution. Cuts to the program means jobs lost and reduced service to northern remote communities. The program's general manager Ray Jones is afraid his network may even become "extinct."

And funding cuts to social programs hurt beyond the actual loss of government money. Such funding is often used as a lever by broadcasters, bands and friendship centres to collect capital from other, non-government sources. For some organizations, every federal government dollar lost means the loss of more than $2 from other sources and that's where the crippling effects of these cutbacks will occur.

So far, there hasn't been much fanfare over the international year here in Canada. The federal government's stance on the importance of Native culture is nevertheless quite clear. They have put their money where their mouths are.