APFA Press Release

February 16, 2005

The Aboriginal Peoples Family Accord (APFA) is working towards securing more input for aboriginal people, including First Nations, urban aboriginal communities and the Métis Nation, concerning the health and safety of their children and youth.

The 2005 Liberal Government Budget released this week restores almost $80 million to Ministry for Children and Family Development programs. These cannot be considered “new” dollars in that this announcement brings the MCFD funding back almost to 2002 levels. Approximately half ($37.7 million) of the restored funding is targeted to Early Childhood Development, Child Care, and Supports to Children with Special Needs. Such an investment will pay dividends for decades to come. Unfortunately, it appears only a small fraction of this investment is targeted to building the future of Aboriginal children in the province. The specifics of the 2005 Budget propose only four new Aboriginal Early Childhood initiatives across the entire province – an increase of approximately 4%.

This week’s budget attempts to ignore the reality that approximately 45 percent of the children in care in B. C. are Aboriginal, despite comprising only eight percent of the population between 0-18 years.  The APFA Chair, Deb Abbott, points out, “The budget ignores the fundamental reason why these children are in care – a historic lack of investment by the Province in Aboriginal communities, which condemns those communities to third-world conditions of poverty and violence”.

This large number of Aboriginal children in care is expensive; in recent years, the Province’s primary strategy for reducing these costs has been to “transfer” this responsibility to federally funded programs. Unfortunately these federal programs often require children to be brought into care before they can receive services. So this week’s budget repeats the mistake of avoiding basic investments in Aboriginal communities to enable children to live and prosper in their own families. Instead it supports strategies biased toward bringing Aboriginal children in to care and funding the foster care system.

More information about this Ministry of Children and Family Development process is available online at: www.mcf.gov.bc.ca

For further information contact APFA spokespeople:

Bob Pasco Political Chair (250) 455-2711

Eliza Terbasket Transition Coordinator (250) 707-0095 ext.117

Debbie Abbott Board Chair (250) 455-2711

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