The Executive Director of the Quesnel Tillicum Society Native Friendship Centre says they have been told that there will be no emergency funding for them.
In fact, Tony Goulet says all friendship centres, including the Cariboo Friendship Society, aren’t getting anything from either the federal government or the province…
“It limits our funding right because we have core people within our organization, like we have the AEE, the secretary, the book keeper, the custodial who can’t be working from home and need that income, you don’t want to lay them off.”
Goulet says their annual budget is about one million dollars and he says they are currently short about half of that.
He says they’re not sure right now if they will have to cut services…
“We don’t know and I think that’s up in the air too. I think the longer we go on. There are reports we can go until the end of June. We’ll have to look at this every month. We’ll have to look at this at the end of April, beginning of May and figure out a strategy moving forward.”
Goulet says they offer a variety of services including free legal advice, drug and alcohol counselling, mental health and employment to name just a few.
He says the National Association of Friendship Centres is now lobbying the federal government for help, while the BC association has requested emergency funding from the provincial government.
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