IAA facing budget crunch

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The Indian Association of Alberta has been forced to lay off staff and cut salaries as it faces a growing deficit crunch stemming from a re-organization of government funding.

"It's going to hurt," said association president Regena Crowchild. "But we have a mandate to keep going and we will."

The association's financial woes began in 1991 when Ottawa slashed its $1 million annual budget to fund treaty chiefs directly at the regional level.

Organizations representing treaties 6, 7 and 8 are now receiving more than $200,000 a year each for the administration of their own policy development programs, said Ken Kirby, Indian Affairs assistant regional director.

Kirby said cutbacks in his department and pressure from the chiefs to take greater control over the direction of policy development in their regions led to financial reorganization.

"It's very difficult when you have discussion and negotiations with a body and then have other representatives come forward and say that group doesn't speak for them," he said.

But Crowchild said the new funding arrangements are restricting the 46-year-old association's ability to fulfill its mandate.

"This money went for everything - for salaries, rent, telephone - all our bills," she said.

Sykes Powderface, the association's vice-president for Treaty 7, said the organization has financial problems but it could be due in part to the current hard times.

Seven staff positions have been cut at the association's headquarters on the Enoch Reserve west of Edmonton and its directors are no longer being paid.