Friendship centres across B.C., and really across Canada, are one of the largest, strongest social service providers for urban aboriginal people. Across Canada we have 126 friendship centres and provincial and territorial associations that work hard for the people in their communities. One of those things that really adds to that service gap area is there's a lack of multi-year funding. A lot of times what we see is, we'll do this initiative for one year. You can't have sustainable change and impact in a community on a one-year basis. You can't have a lasting impact for that community for a one-time-only payout for one year.
When we look at what's lacking, it's that sustainable funding. In one year, for the majority of your year you're out trying to make that connection and bring those people in just to turn them away at the end of the year because you can no longer provide that service. That's one of the biggest things when it comes to the service gap, there's no sustainability. At the friendship centre, one of our biggest pushes right now is in regard to the urban aboriginal strategy. There is no sustainability to this strategy. We are in a bit of a crisis. The urban aboriginal strategy came from an amalgamation of the aboriginal friendship centre program, the cultural connections for aboriginal youth program, and the Young Canada Works.
With that amalgamation, that was the cease of cultural connections for aboriginal youth, and the cease of Young Canada Works into the new urban aboriginal strategy. Those Treasury Board authorities for cultural connections for aboriginal youth and Young Canada Works were not for the full length, and now we're looking at these service delivery program dollars not having a life come this new fiscal. That's how the new amalgamation works. This is one of those gaps. This is one of the challenges friendship centres have going forward, that is, how we are going to be able to continue having these program service dollars when the certainty is not for sure.