It appears the provincial government will continue to act as a go between for First Nations trying to get money for disaster assistance.
The File Hills Qu’Appelle Tribal Council recently issued a call for the responsibility to be turned over to the Federal government.
File Hills and other bands want to start dealing with Ottawa directly so emergency dollars can flow faster to communities.
Some bands say they’re still waiting for assistance dollars for flooding that happened in 2010 and 2011.
However, the minister for First Nations, Métis and Northern Affairs says he thinks the Provincial Disaster Assistance Program is working well.
Jim Reiter recently met with Aboriginal Affairs minister Bernard Valcourt in Ottawa.
He says it wouldn’t make much sense to create a whole new system.
“I would say our discussions revolved around, ‘does it make sense to set up an entirely parallel system from the federal government when you already have a provincial system in place,’” he asks? “You know as a taxpayer, it would ultimately be a federal decision of course, but as a tax payer I don’t think that’s the best use of tax dollars.”
Reiter says cases where bands haven’t received all their monies yet – are likely due to uncompleted paperwork or unfinished work.