Province provides $5M for Indigenous communities to develop their own safety planning programs
CBC
B.C.'s Public Safety Minister Mike Farnworth announced Monday it would provide $5.34 million to Indigenous communities and organizations to help end violence against Indigenous people, in particular women and girls.
The B.C. government's decision to put a fund for Indigenous safety planning in the hands of an Indigenous-led organization was hailed as a step toward reconciliation for the province.
The province will provide the funds to the B.C. Association of Aboriginal Friendship Centres (BCAAFC) to manage and distribute grants to Indigenous organizations under the Path Forward Community Fund.
Projects that are eligible for the grants include support for hosting planning sessions, culturally appropriate safety training and healing and cultural supports.
The B.C. government says the fund advances priorities identified in the final report of the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls as well as its commitments in a 2019 plan to end violence against Indigenous people.
Barb Ward-Burkitt, a longtime advocate and chair of the minister's Advisory Council on Indigenous Women, says the money will provide opportunities to develop programs and services specific to communities and she expects a variety of initiatives.
"Many friendship centres … have really good working relations with the First Nations that are around their urban communities," said Ward-Burkitt.
Leslie Varley, the executive director of the B.C. Association of Aboriginal Friendship Centres, says it is an opportunity to develop provincewide help for Indigenous women and girls.
The B.C. government says the fund advances priorities identified in the final report of the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls as well as its commitments in a 2019 plan to end violence against Indigenous people. Varley says Indigenous women and girls have been the targets of violence by those who have preyed on their colonial poverty when they should have been protected. "Until now, we've had to go through mainstream organizations to protect and support our women and girls,'' she said. "That clearly hasn't worked for us.''
Fort William First Nation is opposing a planned redevelopment of the Ontario Power Generation's (OPG) 117 year old Kakabeka Falls Generating Station, which is located in their traditional territory.
A building that sits at the corner of Sussex Street and Brunswick Avenue has had many lives over the last century — being a church, a school and offices. Now it's set to become housing, at a time when the city sorely needs it.
A Waterloo, Ont., elementary school principal will be sentenced in the new year after pleading guilty to child sexual exploitation charges following a joint investigation that involved the London, Toronto and Waterloo police services.
Students at UPEI have let their student union know what they want from the province this fiscal year, and those priorities are reflected in a 2024-2025 advocacy document brought to the legislature on Wednesday.
Larger communities in the N.W.T. will soon see a boost in their territorial funding to maintain infrastructure and deliver services — like water and waste management — but the increase still falls short of what communities need.
The toxic drug crisis has taken more than 47,000 lives in Canada since 2016 and the synthetic opioid fentanyl has become a household name. But now, what's believed to be an even more potent class of synthetic drugs is showing up in drug busts across the country: nitazenes.
The Liberal government and the NDP have agreed to introduce a two-month GST vacation on certain items before the holiday season, Radio-Canada has learned.
Veterinarians are warning Londoners to make sure their dogs are vaccinated and keeping clean after a deadly virus outbreak was declared in London this week.
Registered nurses rallied in St. John's Wednesday as part of a week-long convention, again calling on the Newfoundland and Labrador government to create permanent solutions to staff shortages and workplace violence.
New poll results released by Narrative Research suggest the Progressive Conservatives are heading into Tuesday's provincial election with a commanding lead over their political rivals.
A measles outbreak in New Brunswick is set to push Canada's annual case count to the highest it's been in five years, highlighting how infectious the disease is and how low vaccination rates have allowed it to take hold, says an immunologist.