Survivors’ Secretariat warns it’s at risk of bankruptcy without funding decision

By Alessia Passafiume, The Canadian Press on December 18, 2024.

OTTAWA – The Survivors’ Secretariat says it will be bankrupt by the end of the month unless Canada makes a decision on whether it will fund the group’s work.

The organization documents what happened at the Mohawk Institute, a residential school that operated in Brantford, Ont., and supports survivors of the school.

Laura Arndt, the secretariat’s lead, says it has been waiting months to hear whether it will get funding through the residential schools and missing children community support fund.

In 2021, after numerous First Nations reported finding what appeared to be human remains on the sites of former residential schools, Ottawa set aside money to fund searches of the sites and documentation of what happened at the schools.

Arndt says bureaucratic processes in the department of Crown-Indigenous relations are delaying approval of the application, and the secretariat feels it’s being “pushed aside and ignored.”

A spokesperson for Crown-Indigenous Relations Minister Gary Anandasangaree says the deadlines to apply for that funding haven’t changed, and that the department is assessing the applications.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Dec. 18, 2024.

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