CEO of National Association of Friendship Centres fears devastating cuts coming in Federal budget

The chief executive officer of the National Association of Friendship Centres (NAFC) says she’s worried about a lack of communication from Indigenous Services Canada since she made the organization’s pre-budget submission during a meeting in early August. “I think my immediate worry is that we’re not hearing anything,” says Jocelyn Formsma in an interview with APTN News. “We’ve had a long-standing positive relationship with the government, the previous government. And, as this government has been elected, we’ve been doing outreach to reconnect with the new ministers and with the prime minister.” “And speaking with partners and other folks, there doesn’t seem to be a whole lot of information coming from the government, in particular, what their priorities and intentions are around…funding.”   There are 100 member friendship centres that make up the NAFC.  Formsma says the NAFC’S budget ask for 2025 is $10 million more than last year. “In our pre-budget submission, we said that to provide basically a current, status quo rate of services is a minimum of $65 million a year.” But, Prime Minister Mark Carney has signaled that tough choices are coming in the Nov. 4 budget. On his way into a caucus meeting Wednesday, Carney declined to tip his hand on what he would say. While Formsma says the August meeting with the minister was a “really positive first meeting,” Indigenous Services has a “large budget ask,” and she doesn’t know where they fit in. “There’s very little indication as to whether we’ll be able to continue our broad-reaching service delivery across the country. We’re funded under urban programming for Indigenous Peoples, and the communication that we received is that the program may continue. However, there’s no funding amount attached to it.” Formsma says an average of 61 per cent of Indigenous peoples are urbanized across the country and of that number, “friendship centers are serving well over a million people every single year.” According to the NAFC website, the centres emerged in the mid-1950s as the number of Indigenous people moving into larger urban areas increased.  “Indigenous agencies emerged out of a clear need for specialized services to help Indigenous newcomers to the city. These agencies would provide referrals and offer counselling on matters of employment, housing, education, health and liaison with other community organizations,” according to the website. By the early 1970s, the site says, friendship centres had evolved from the provision of referrals to “front-line” delivery vehicles of social services. “And, of course, we are by and for Indigenous people,” says Formsma, “We [were] started by Indigenous Peoples. We’ve been developed and advanced by Indigenous Peoples and we’re experts in what we do,” Formsma says. “So when the government is saying they’re looking at devolving services to Indigenous entities, the Friendship Center Movement is one of the largest partners that they should be directly engaging with.” Apart from the loss of services for Indigenous Peoples, another big worry for Formsma is the potential job losses across the organization. “Friendship centers are a massive employer of Indigenous people and, in particular, Indigenous women.  Eighty per cent of our leadership in the Friendship Centre Movement are Indigenous women, and these are good jobs that provide a lot of support for community members,” Formsma says. It flies in the face of the federal government, “wanting economic reconciliation, but then cutting crucial jobs for Indigenous women,” she says. APTN reached out to ISC Minister Mandy Gull-Masty and received a statement from her office.  “This government is working closely with First Nation, Inuit and Métis leadership to make sure that anything we do is guided by the needs and actions they determine themselves,” the statement says. “Ministerial offices do not provide specific details about the contents of the Budget before it is released publicly. We are working to ensure that all individual requests are adequately addressed.”  The prime minister is scheduled to give a speech late Wednesday on the tough choices his Liberal government faces in its first budget. The Conservatives say their leader, Pierre Poilievre, would meet privately with Carney on Wednesday to discuss the planned fiscal blueprint. The minority Liberal government is three votes shy of being able to pass measures on its own and will need either the support or abstention of members of other parties to pass the budget. Continue Reading