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“Canada’s Department of Aboriginal Affairs has been robbing Peter to pay Paul.
In this case, “Peter” is the department’s infrastructure budget and “Paul” refers to its cash-strapped social and education programs.
A new document shows Aboriginal Affairs and Northern Development Canada (AANDC) shifted half a billion dollars meant for infrastructure over a six-year period to try to cover shortfalls elsewhere.
The result? The department’s already strapped infrastructure program is starting to buckle while its social and education needs are still falling short.
“Significant reallocations from infrastructure to other programs have occurred over the past six years,” says the June 2013 document. “For example, AANDC has reallocated approximately $505 million in infrastructure dollars to social, education and other programs to try to fill the shortfall in these areas.”
– HUFFPOS Canada, Aboriginal Affairs Short Of Cash For Social Programs, Education: Doc.
“Using infrastructure money for other purposes has a real impact on aboriginal communities, said Franklin Paibomsai, chief of the Whitefish River First Nation in northern Ontario. Schools don’t get built and communities get put under boil-water advisories, he said.
“So those are the impacts. They’re real, because they really hit home. They’re bread-and-butter pieces for every community,” Paibomsai said in an interview.
“Somehow people don’t realize that, OK, we took half a billion dollars away to put into social programming to help First Nations, now somebody doesn’t have access to potable water. I mean, that’s real. That’s as real as it gets.”
The 22-page document, which appears to be a slide show presentation, is buried within a mountain of paperwork filed as part of First Nations advocate Cindy Blackstock’s long battle at the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal to get aboriginal children the same funding from the federal government as non-aboriginal kids get from the provinces.”
– CBC News, Aboriginal Affairs short of cash for education, social programs: document.
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Indian Country 52
Indian Country 52 is a weekly project by David Bernie that uses the medium of posters that promote issues and stories in Indian Country.
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This work by David Bernie is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. You may download, share, and post the images under the condition that the works are attributed to the artist.
