Funding loss hurts residential school survivors

NEWS RELEASE

TONY MARTIN, MP

************************* Harper must extend funding to Aboriginal Healing Foundation - Martin OTTAWA - Sault MP Tony Martin introduced a petition today to extend funding for the Aboriginal Healing Foundation as New Democrats make a last-minute appeal directly to the prime minister. “Funding for the Aboriginal Healing Foundation is set to expire tomorrow which means that up to 131 projects, including those in Garden River and Batchewana will be closing across Canada,” Martin said.

“These are key projects that work with residential school survivors and deal with the inter-generational impacts of residential schools. The loss of these projects is not consistent with the prime minister's apology nor the governments commitment to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. "The Aboriginal Healing Foundation has given healing and hope to survivors, their families and their communities for 10 years but the need for healing is not over,” says Niki Ashton (Churchill). “We are appealing to the prime minister to save the Aboriginal Healing Foundation."

The AHF provide resources which promote reconciliation and encourage and support Aboriginal people and their communities in building and reinforcing sustainable healing processes that address the legacy of physical, sexual, mental, cultural, and spiritual abuses in the residential school system, including intergenerational impacts.

"The importance of the Aboriginal Healing Foundation is its work in communities, on the ground. The loss of such programming would be devastating," says Ashton. Ashton, who has been spearheading a National campaign to save the AHF, has presented petitions signed by thousands of Canadians in supporting the Aboriginal Healing Foundation. "First Nations, Metis and Inuit and non-Aboriginal people from coast to coast to coast have spoken out. We are asking the Federal Government to follow the legacy of the National Residential Schools Apology and its commitment to reconciliation by saving the Aboriginal Healing Foundation." *************************