FSIN Chief Bobby Cameron picture in June. Photo by Manfred Joehnck
Much of the nation has grown wary of the new Liberal government’s delays on following through on campaign promises, and the Federation of Sovereign Indigenous Nations is among them.
On Wednesday, the FSIN executive put out a call on the feds to finally follow through on closing the funding gap in First Nations education.
The campaign promise was to provide $2.6 billion for First Nations education, $500 million for education infrastructure and $50 million more per year for post-secondary education.
What the Liberal government offered in the budget meets the $2.6 billion promise – but spans five years – and $969.4 million for education infrastructure, FSIN says.
Chief Bobby Cameron says First Nations children and communities deserve the education they are entitled to as an inherent and treaty right.
Instead, he says, INAC chooses to blame First Nations for not having structures in place.
“We have been waiting for decades. The campaign promises were made and we were cautiously hopeful, so we waited. The budget was released and still we waited. We will still be discussing the funding gap in 20 years if there isn’t any movement from the bureaucrats at INAC,” Chief Cameron said in a statement by FSIN.