The Member of Parliament for northern Saskatchewan is defending his government’s approach to Aboriginal health.
Rob Clarke says recent cuts to some programming done by national organizations won’t impact health delivery at the grassroots level.
Some of the groups that have lost health funding include the National Aboriginal Health Organization, the Assembly of First Nations and the Native Women’s Association of Canada.
Clarke says the federal government is committed to providing health delivery and the cuts won’t affect that:
“No. Health Canada has been very straightforward and the minister’s been very straightforward; Health Canada will continue to focus its core role which is delivery of health services to First Nations, the Metis, Inuit people as efficiently and effectively as possible, and will continue to do so. What we’re just looking at is trying to cut ineffective or bureaucracy duplication.”
One of the groups cut, NAHO, says it will have to wind down its operations by the end of June.
Clarke says the decision to cut its funding was spurred by feedback from some other Aboriginal groups:
“Just with the National Aboriginal Health Organization, what you’re seeing is a process in which this organization has been receiving funding of just over $3 million, and they’ve been given three years to address the shortcomings — and at the request of the AFN, the Metis federation and the Inuit to stop funding this program — because, basically, all it was doing was subsidizing the administration and rental of a building.”
Meantime, Clarke notes the government has renewed the Aboriginal Justice Strategy for another year.
A release by the Opposition said it didn’t know whether the strategy would be back, but Clarke says it is continuing.
He says $12.5 million has been allocated to the strategy for the current year.
Clarke feels the strategy has helped limit the repetition of criminal behavior on reserve and contributed to the safety and security of on-reserve residents, particularly women and children.