Friends in need of funding
National president visits to drum up support

Cindy MacDougall
Northern News Services

Yellowknife (Dec 06/99) - The NWT Council of Friendship Centres is pulling out the big connections in their push for funding from the Government of the Northwest Territories.

Dennis Francis, president of the National Association of Friendship Centres, visited Yellowknife last week. He met the NWT council and other aboriginal leaders on the issue of friendship centre funding and support.

"I gave my personal commitment to the NWT Council of Friendship Centres to help in their struggle to secure funding for friendship centres and the council from the Government of the Northwest Territories," he said.

The national association, which has 115 member centres across Canada, also voted during their annual general meeting in July to support the council's fight for funding.

"The government has a responsibility to its constituents, and many of those constituents are served by the friendship centres," Francis said.

Chuck Larocque, executive director of the NWT council, said the council receives no money from the GNWT, and has lost much of its federal funding due to cutbacks.

"Some individual friendship centres have accessed funding for programs and one-time grants for various activities," he said, "but that is minimal compared to the support the GNWT is giving to other organizations."

Francis also pointed out four provinces -- British Columbia, Alberta, Ontario and Quebec -- give funding to friendship centres and their councils.

"In Ontario, friendship centres receive over $10 million combined funding from the federal, provincial and municipal governments," Francis said.

"And it's managed at a regional perspective."

The council received about $89,000 in funding this year, Larocque said, the vast majority of it coming from the national association's coffers. The federal government gave a small administrative costs fund.

The council used to receive upwards of $120,000 of funding from combined sources, he said.

All eight friendship centres receive just a little over $900,000 in support funding.

Larocque said the lack of funding may force certain friendship centres to shut down in the future.

"I'd say, by the end of February, without support from the GNWT, we'll be closing doors," he said. "We're threatened by their inaction."

Larocque said the council has applied for GNWT funding since 1997, but has not received a penny.

Premier Jim Antoine said he was aware of a funding request from the council.

"As a government, we've never had to fund friendship centres before," Antoine said.

He said federal funding cuts to the GNWT make it difficult to fund new programs.

"Unfortunately, we don't have enough to do everything people want to do in the North," he said. "We have to concentrate on our existing programs."

Antoine said it is unfair to compare the territorial government's lack of friendship centre funding to the provinces who do fund their centres.

"We don't have the kind of money a rich province like B.C. has," he said. "We get so much money from the federal government to run the Northwest Territories, and we've gone through cutbacks."

Antoine said the federal government should consider using some of the budget surplus to reinstate funding to the territory.

The council connects the eight NWT friendship centres, but does not control them. The centres are independent and run by volunteer boards.