Memorial park at former Mohawk Institute among projects at risk due to funding cuts

An organization leading efforts to investigate the Mohawk Institute residential school in Brantford, Ont., says it will be forced to cancel plans for a memorial park and other projects after learning its funding will be dramatically reduced.

The Survivors' Secretariat had been waiting months for word on funding for the current fiscal year through Crown-Indigenous and Northern Affairs Canada (CIRNAC).

Laura Arndt, lead for the Secretariat, said she was informed Wednesday that funding to organizations through the Residential Schools Missing Children Community Support program would be capped at $500,000 per year, a substantial reduction from the previously announced $3 million cap.

Arndt said the Secretariat's previous funding agreement of just over $10.1 million over three years came to an end on March 31. Discussions with Canada and Ontario around renewed funding began last fall.

The Mohawk Institute was run by the Anglican Church of Canada, and later the Government of Canada, from 1828 to 1970, making it the longest operating residential school in the country. Between 90 and 200 children taken from Six Nations and other First Nations were forced to attend the school each year.

A $3 million cap on funding was already concerning to Arndt.

"They're applying this cookie cutter approach that's going to give all applicants the same amount of funding and the fact of the matter is, it's not an equitable breakdown."

Arndt said about 10 per cent of all the children who attended residential schools in Canada attended the Mohawk Institute.

"We still don't have guidelines in front of us and being informed that what they're willing to provide to us is 14 per cent of what we originally had," Arndt said. 

She said the work they suspended while waiting for word on funding includes data collection that would ensure school records are kept with survivors' nations as well as the planned park on the grounds of the former school. 

Through records research, they have so far identified 96 child deaths at the school, nearly double the number listed by the National Centre for Truth and Reconciliation. Arndt said ground search activity and record collection are expensive undertakings.

"If we have the funding we can finish the work," she said.

"The work is so important because we've got to remember these children to our communities."

She said when they first applied for funding through the Residential Schools Missing Children Community Support program in 2022, the money wasn't released until nine and a half months into the promised period.