Erin Lewis
News Reporter

The president of a Humber-linked First Nations post-secondary institute said the school may be forced to close its doors next month after a substantial funding cut was ordered by the federal government.

Karihwakeron Tim Thompson, head of the First Nations Technical Institute, said funding has been insecure since 2004 and the institute was warned by Ottawa in 2007 that it could take a significant financial cut in the fiscal year.

“The impact of the cut is so severe that it would not allow our institute to operate as of April 1,” Thompson said from the Tyendinaga Mohawk Territory outside Belleville, Ont. 

Humber College works in partnership with the institute to deliver the Indigenous Communications Program, which was created to help graduates tell their own stories.

Thompson said the closure could affect 955 students in various programs.

Humber President John Davies said funding cutbacks for First Nations programs are unusual and he regrets the program is in jeopardy.

“Investment in post-secondary education is a wise investment for First Nations and it’s not as if we have a great track-record in getting First Nations students into post-secondary education.  So where we’ve got successful programs, we ought to be supporting them,” Davies said.

The funding for the institute was roughly $530,000 this fiscal year, down from $2.7 million in 2004.

In a House of Commons transcript issued by the Ministry of Indian and Northern Affairs, minister Chuck Strahl said emergency funding has been granted until the end of the school year but urged the institute to create a new business plan.

 “There are six or seven other First Nations schools in the province of Ontario, all of them doing good work,” Strahl said.  “Unfortunately, just this one Institute comes back every year for emergency funding and I’m urging them to consider other business plans like the other schools are doing to make sure that we can have a long-term sustainable First Nations education.”

 But it is the students who may suffer the most.

“A lot of the students have family concerns, they’ve risked a lot to take the programs that they’ve chosen. 

Relocating, big programs, uprooting their families,” Thompson said.  “I was meeting with our aviation students this morning and it’s very hard for them.  They dream of being pilots and now that opportunity is at risk of being taken away from them.”