Residential school survivors ‘overjoyed’ about return of travel funding for counselling in North
Worries linger about what comes when funding runs out at end of fiscal year
Joanne Charney said she was “overjoyed” when she found out she would be able to travel to Yellowknife from Fort Good Hope, N.W.T., to see her mental health counsellor again, at least for a few more months.
“When I heard the news, I was over the moon,” she said. “I’m very hopeful for myself and for others who need this program.”
Charney is one of many residential school survivors and their family members in the N.W.T. and Nunavut who access mental health counselling through Indigenous Services Canada’s Indian Residential School Resolution Health Support Program.
For some, like Charney, a key component has been the refund of travel costs to attend counselling in-person, either for clients to fly to their counsellors or for counsellors to fly into communities.
On Wednesday, Indigenous Services Canada told CBC in an email it had secured funding to keep paying for travel until the end of the fiscal year, after previously telling counsellors on July 24 that travel would no longer be paid for and facing criticism for the decision.
Funding for counsellors to take on new clients and approve more hours is also expected to expire in March 2027, according to ISC’s July 24 email. Some now worry about the fate of the program beyond that.
In an email to CBC, an ISC spokesperson wrote that the department is working on a plan for the coming years.
‘I will put in as much as I can into my healing’
Charney has been in counselling since 2007, and said she still needs the program. She credits counselling she has received through it with helping her become a better parent.
“I loved my children with all my heart, I still do, but I just didn’t know how to parent because of the residential school,” she said. “There was no love and there was no caring, and so I was just so messed up.”
She said the counselling has also helped her through the various settlements and lawsuits that have come over time, like the ongoing Federal Indian Hospitals Settlement.
“We have to go back into the past and revisit the pain and the trauma, and it’s not easy,” she said. “But then when that happens, I have my counsellor. I’ve got a place I can go.”
Charney said she still sees many in her home community who also need this program and are still learning it even exists.
With the funding only secured to keep the program going until March 2027, however, she is thinking ahead.
“If I only got until March, then I’m thinking I will put in as much as I can into my healing.”
She said that whatever happens next should be communicated more directly to clients by the government itself, and should come with more advance notice so she is not “left in the dark,” as she felt over the past few days.
‘They should go about it a lot better’
For Ruth Niptanatiak-Wilcox, the initial news that travel would no longer be possible had been “devastating” and “so hurtful.”
Niptanatiak-Wilcox lives in Cambridge Bay, Nunavut, and for the last fifteen years or so, has relied on counsellors travelling to her home community.
She said counselling has helped her not only to “become a better person” as a residential school survivor, but also to work through the loss of her son to suicide right around when she started counselling.
News of the new funding has eased her mind, but has also brought up mixed emotions.
“I’m glad the funding is there,” she said. “But at the same time, what happens after that?”
Niptanatiak-Wilcox said she wondered why the funding was only extended for a short period of time if the government is committed to reconciliation.
She said she “2000 per cent” believes the program should go on, both personally and for her region — but if it had to stop, it should be handled differently.
“If they’re gonna turn around and cease the program again like they they just did for the last couple of days, I think they should go about it a lot better,” she said.
Hope for more consultation
Jodi Kapicki, a licensed psychologist in Yellowknife contracted under the program, said she was “incredibly grateful” that travel would continue to be funded.
However, she said she is also concerned about what happens once the fiscal year is over because a repeat of the past week would be “harmful.”
“I’m hoping that they will do some consultation with their Indigenous partners, and also maybe the people who are providing this service, to know what is best,” she said.
Kapicki said moving forward, she is telling her clients that there is no guarantee the program may last beyond March, and that if it ends there is a chance that the government could be “unorganized [and] noncommunicative” again.
“I actually feel anxiety, if that’s the right word, even talking about this because I don’t want this program to end,” she said. “To even be thinking about doing wrap-up just feels wrong.”
CBC has reached out to Indigenous Services Canada for comment. The department acknowledged the request and said it is working on a response, though it did not send one by deadline.
Former residential school students and their families can call the 24-hour National Indian Residential School Crisis Line toll free at 1-866-925-4419.
Related stories from around the North:
Canada: Travel funding cut to residential school counselling program leaves clients without closure in N.W.T., Nunavut, Eye on the Arctic
Finland: Truth and Reconciliation Commission should continue says Sami Parliament in Finland (new window), Eye on the Arctic
Greenland: Danish PM apologizes to Greenlanders taken to Denmark as children in 1950s (new window), Eye on the Arctic
Norway: Can cross-border cooperation help decolonize Sami-language education (new window), Eye on the Arctic
Sweden: Sami in Sweden start work on structure of Truth and Reconciliation Commission (new window), Eye on the Arctic
United States: Alaska reckons with missing data on murdered Indigenous women (new window), Alaska Public Media
