Thunder Bay Source
Local Journalism Initiative Reporter
The federal government is making a big cut in funding for residential schools initiatives, and that’s “very disappointing” to Chief Rudy Turtle.
“We weren’t expecting it,” the Grassy Narrows First Nation chief said Thursday of Ottawa’s decision to cut funding by 83 per cent. “It caught us by surprise, for sure.”
Turtle said the feds didn’t communicate the decision directly to him or Grassy Narrows (Asubpeeschoseewagong) council.
Instead, he said, “I heard it through the media, plus from our residential school workers.”
He said the reduction “definitely slows things down” in his First Nation’s investigation of the former McIntosh Residential School, which had children from Grassy Narrows and many other reserves from 1925 to 1969.
The First Nation northeast of Kenora is heading up research into unmarked graves at the McIntosh site near Vermilion Lake through the Wiikwogaming Tiinahtiisiiwin project.
The change in funding “really impacts our ability to do the research,” Turtle said.
“And also it’s very disappointing, because the government keeps talking about reconciliation and this is not reconciliation,” he added.
Grassy Narrows will send a letter to the feds “asking why this is happening and also to express our displeasure,” he said.
First Nations learned in mid-July that the federal government’s annual funding for searches of former residential school grounds is being capped at $500,000 per initiative, down $2.5 million from the previous limit.
Scott Hamilton, an anthropology professor at Lakehead University, told CBC News the cap reflects “either naivete on the part of the feds thinking how it’s not going to cost that much . . . or cynicism to try and drive communities into despair so they give up.”
A petition at change.org calls the funding cut a “a grave injustice” that “disregards the Canadian government’s promise of reconciliation.”
The petition, which started on July 25, gathered nearly 2,000 signatures in one week.
Lac Seul First Nation released a statement Thursday calling for a reversal of Ottawa’s funding decision.
In 2021 the Ojibwe community near Sioux Lookout launched the Bringing Our Children Home Initiative to investigate possible unmarked graves and missing children from the Pelican Lake Indian Residential School.
The sudden funding policy change has made the project “unsustainable” and “will severely limit our capacity to resolve immeasurable trauma of survivors,” according to the Lac Seul statement.
“Our mission to bring the children home, provide them with a dignified resting place and reunite them with their families and communities is unfeasible.”
The statement called on Ottawa to “restore appropriate levels of funding.”
