The head of the Federation of Saskatchewan Indian Nations says a $1.1 million dollar cut in federal funding may force the organization to lay off staff and cut programming.
Chief Perry Bellegarde says the FSIN knew cuts were coming for months but they only found out a few days ago how exactly these cuts would affect the organization.
He says this is hardly the renewed relationship the Harper government has said it wants with Aboriginal organizations.
“It’s almost like the feds want to weaken the Indian organizations across Canada so our voice is not as strong and/or unified,” he says.
“That’s the sad point of that. When we talk about renewing the relationship with the federal government, we had high hopes that we’d see concrete results but instead we see cutbacks right across this country.”
The Metis Nation of Saskatchewan is also being forced to absorb a $46,000 cut in federal funding, the Assembly of First Nations half a million dollars and the Assembly of Manitoba Chiefs close to $2.1 million.
In an email response to MBC, the government says it values its relationship with aboriginal organizations and is committed to working with them to advance “shared” priorities.