Budget shows Ottawa's "commitment" to First Nations: Minister Valcourt
Aboriginal Affairs Minister Bernard Valcourt dismissed opposition budget attacks aimed at a $241 million program linking job training and on-reserve welfare payments, saying it simply follows a model that has already been tested by provincial governments across the country.
By Jorge Barrera
APTN National News
OTTAWA–Aboriginal Affairs Minister Bernard Valcourt dismissed opposition budget attacks aimed at a $241 million program linking job training and on-reserve welfare payments, saying it simply follows a model that has already been tested by provincial governments across the country.
Valcourt said Thursday that the Harper government’s 2013 budget showed Ottawa’s “commitment” to First Nations which is “obvious to anyone who cares to look.”
NDP Opposition Leader Thomas Mulcair blasted the job training program earlier in the day, saying that Prime Minister Stephen Harper was giving First Nations “the back of his hand.”
Valcourt said Mulcair’s outrage was simply “spin” and that the program responds to the wishes of First Nations leaders. Valcourt said he met with Alberta chiefs and band councillors earlier this week and a top priority was finding ways to get First Nations youth trained and working.
“That is the message I was getting. They need the training to get these youth trained so that they can access good jobs and that is exactly what we want to do,” said Valcourt, in a short interview over the telephone while he was in-between flights in Toronto. “These are kids and these are youth that have no opportunities because they don’t have the training and instead of being on welfare doing nothing, this is an active measure.”
Valcourt said the model for this program goes back to the late 1980s when it was championed by Frank McKenna, who was the Liberal premier of New Brunswick at the time.
“This has been undertaken throughout Canada at all provincial governments,” said Valcourt. “This is not new, but it is coming to First Nations and it is about time they get the same kind of benefits other Canadians get.”
The $241 million program, unveiled as part of the Harper government’s 2013 federal budget, would force youth aged between 18 and 24 to take job training if they want to receive welfare payments. First Nation bands can only access the program funding if they agree to enforce the link.
Only $109 million of the total will be used for actual “personalized job training,” while the remaining, larger portion of $132 million will go toward the administration of the program.
First Nations leaders agreeing to take part in the funding program will also have to follow the rules set out by their particular provinces that run these so-called incentive programs.
Valcourt, however, would not directly respond to a statement issued Thursday evening by Assembly of First Nations National Chief Shawn Atleo who said that while the budget repeatedly mentioned First Nations, “the investment just isn’t there.”
Valcourt said he tried to reach Atleo during the day, but the national chief was busy in a meeting.
Atleo said in the statement that he would be seeking more clarity on the budget in the coming days.
“First Nations must no longer be an afterthought or victims of unfairness, inefficiencies and waste of a system that does not work” said Atleo. “The severe socioeconomic challenges facing our people every day will only continue to worsen until we can achieve a broader commitment that addresses the failure of past unilateral legislative and policy initiatives, including the Indian Act and existing bureaucratic regimes.”
The federal budget was unveiled against the backdrop of the stirring Idle No More movement, which recently formed an alliance with an Indigenous activist network under the name of Defenders of the Land. The alliance has called for a “Solidarity Spring” followed by a “Sovereignty Summer” that could see escalating protests and direct action campaigns.
Valcourt said he didn’t know if the measures in the 2013 budget would do anything to quell the looming protests.
“That, I don’t know. What I am resolved to do is work with those communities and those First Nations across Canada that want to improve the situation,” said Valcourt. “It is by working together in a positive way and acting on our objectives to fill…those gaps that are critical between non-Aboriginal Canadians and Aboriginal Canadians. That is my goal.”
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