Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  From a policy perspective, focusing on supporting labour market development for friendship centres not currently delivering outside of Ontario aboriginal labour market programming from the federal government.... Also, this affects a lot of charities' ability to have a for-profit

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  We've been involved at national policy discussions in the development of the strategy with the commission, but perhaps not at the individual friendship centres.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  Certainly at the national office, part of that job of coordination is sharing information and sharing best practices through our communications across the network of friendship centres. That's something we do quite often. We profile various interventions that are successful. Chri

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  Flexibility is important. We all know that programs are designed by governments for specific purposes, but flexibility on serving in the community, the one delivering the service, is very important. Across the friendship centres, we have 60 years of experience in meeting needs di

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  Our understanding is that we're going to receive the full $43 million, so it won't be a cutback in funds. The issue is the delay that we've been experiencing as we've been adjusting to the new requirements, but as I say, we're hopeful that will be resolved soon. And, yes, it is h

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  I believe the minister is correct in that the authority for the department for the funding exists post-budget, and we've been in discussions with the public servants who manage the program, and they've requested us to reconfigure our contribution agreement. We had to produce a ne

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  We understand some friendship centres in some areas either have or are at risk of losing staff. Part of the challenge, I think, was a lot of the concern around the sunsetting of a large portion of the funds. It made everyone quite anxious for the budget announcement. Of course,

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  Many of them are registered charities, yes.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  Right. The national association, our office at the NAFC, is incorporated federally, so we fall under the Canada Not-for-profit Corporations Act, but individual centres are generally incorporated in their province or territory, and most of them are registered charities.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  To clarify, part of that is we have a federated structure. There are seven provincial and territorial associations, so that would explain that in Alberta.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  That was our calculation from the 2014-15 fiscal year. I believe it's been as high as $12. Part of the sources of funding are provincial governments for some services for some friendship centres. Of course some of that funding varies based on priorities that change for different

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  Thank you. Yes, we were asked by the department to adjust our submission to move forward to get to our contribution agreement, which was required because of the authority change coming from the budget commitment, and we remade our submission yesterday. We're quite hopeful that w