First Nations groups and northern Saskatchewan organizations are responding to yesterday’s budget with mixed feelings.
“We were hopeful more funding would flow our way based on our growing population and that was our concern,” says Federation of Saskatchewan Indian Nations Vice-Chief Bobby Cameron.
Cameron says while they were pleased with some of the budget, he feels it does not reflect the growing number of First Nations and Metis people in the province. He says 13 per cent of the population is First Nations or Metis, but only 1.47 per cent of the budget is targeted for those groups.
“We were going into that budget announcement hopeful and optimistic that the funding would reflect out growing population, and in some ways it did, but in other ways it didn’t,” said Cameron. “It’s our job at the FSIN to continue to lobby and advocate to get that funding flowing to reflect our population.”
Cameron says it was good to see funding toward on-reserve policing and post-secondary education for First Nations.
Another group providing its response to yesterday’s budget is New North. New North represents all 35 northern Saskatchewan municipalities.
CEO Al Loke says he was fearful the government was going to cut municipal revenue sharing, but he was glad to see a slight increase in that area. Northern municipalities are getting $19.8 million in municipal revenue sharing, up $600,000 from last year.
But Loke says the government failed to address northern Saskatchewan needs in health and infrastructure.
“We have been stressing to the government on the need for infrastructure for roads and other areas, but once again we have been left on the wayside and southern projects have been put above northern needs,” says Loke.
He says the only infrastructure money for the north was for airports.
“There is no other money for road infrastructure, just for the maintenance grant for the airports,” says Loke. “The budget is $56 million, but it was stated that $14 million would be for new construction. But that had already been announced earlier this year, so there is no new money coming in for road infrastructure.”
NDP critic Buckley Belanger echoes that sentiment, saying there is no evidence of new northern highway construction plans in yesterday’s budget.
The Athabasca MLA says the government has once again committed funds to northern road maintenance, but not construction.
“And all we see is a maintenance budget and that’s it. And for anybody to suggest that there’s increased construction for northern roads in this budget is foolish, because none of that is in there.”
But Highways Minister Nancy Heppner says roughly $14 million of this year’s northern road budget is for construction.
She also says the Wall government continues to invest more in northern roads than the previous government.
“In our last seven years, there’s been a 30 per cent increase in investment in northern roads over the NDP’s last seven years. So we know that there is work to be done in the north, but we are making those investments and increasing the budgets every year.”
According to Heppner, $44 million has been set aside for northern highway maintenance and construction — up from $37 million last year.
Overall, Belanger says the budget is “flat”, “boring” and has “no vision at all”.
The New Democrat MLA says the government is squandering an opportune time to make a major investment in Saskatchewan’s Aboriginal community.
“This government has had well over $75 billion in the last seven years. And what has their commitment to the north been? Absolutely nothing. So they have this record revenue coming into the government and they still haven’t got the wisdom or the foresight to try to make strategic investments — and especially into Indian and Metis people.”
But Advanced Education Minister Kevin Doherty says, among other things, the record revenues are going into improving Aboriginal educational outcomes.
“One of our growth plan objectives has been to reduce the gap in graduation rates — both in the K-12 system and the post-secondary system — between Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal individuals. We’re making headway there. We’re going to continue to make headway there. We want Aboriginal people to have the same opportunities as non-Aboriginals with respect to post-secondary education and participation in the economy. That’s what we’re doing and that’s where the money is going.”
Doherty notes an extra $1 million has been set aside this year for Adult Basic Education — and says his government is well on its way to fulfilling a promise to eliminate the waiting lists.
The Saskatchewan Indian Institute of Technologies is receiving an extra 24 per cent in operational funding from the province this year.
That’s well above the one to two per cent increase schools like the First Nations University, GDI, DTI and NORTEP/NORPAC are getting.
Doherty says SIIT is being given more than the others partly to help it stay competitive.
“The president there, Riel Bellegarde, made the case to me a few months ago that they’re having difficulty from an administration perspective in keeping faculty because they can’t pay competitive salaries. They’re losing faculty members to other institutions like regional colleges. So we took a look at the funding model across the entire piece and realized that if we can do something additional for them to help them out with that situation, we ought to do that.”
Doherty also says on a per-student basis, SIIT has not been getting the kind of funding from the province that other institutions have.
One of the revelations to come out of yesterday’s budget was that gaming revenues are on the decline.
As a result, First Nations gaming agreement transfers will be down 3.4 per cent this year.
Government Relations Minister Jim Reiter says it is part of a phenomenon seen across the continent.
“From what I know from what our officials tell me is that I think it’s kind of across the board. The gaming market in North America — I think they’re finding, in general, that revenues are sort of flattening.”
Reiter says even though the percentage decrease to the transfers is relatively small, it does represent millions of dollars.
Another item from yesterday’s budget is that funding for forest fire capital projects is being tripled this year.
Environment Minister Scott Moe says an extra $3 million is being set aside to add to the ministry’s forest fire suppression fleet in La Ronge.
“The forest fire capital budget saw an increase this year due to the fact that we’re continuing to upgrade and reinvest in our wildfire fleet — and in particular, we’re initiating the purchase and conversion of another CL-215t.”
However, the reforestation budget is being cut 38 per cent this year.
Moe says it’s being reduced as forestry companies assume more responsibility for replacing trees they harvest.
As for the 31 per cent decrease to the Environmental Protection Program, Moe attributes that to the absence of some one-time funding announcement made in last year’s budget. He says the auditing of abandoned mine site that the provincial auditor had asked the government to do cost $1.25 million, while $500,000 was provided to municipalities for the Multi-Material Recycling Program.