To the editor:
One more Conservative decision and one more reason why our next federal election will be an important one.
This month, another important part of our Canada and Northern Ontario was almost lost.
Wawatay Communications is an organization that publishes a bi-weekly community newspaper as well as a magazine for northern teens.
It operates a broadcasting station, produces television shows, provides translation services and manages a multimedia website all of which serve the needs of 60,000 northern First Nation people and the communities in which they live.
The Department of Canadian Heritage, through the Northern Aboriginal Broadcasting Program, supports organizations like Wawatay throughout Canada’s north. Since 2007, Wawatay has received annual funding.
These monies, and its advertising revenue, allow Wawatay to serve communities that stretch from James Bay to the Manitoba border. Unfortunately, Steven Harper’s government did not respond to a funding application that was submitted in January until this week.
Wawatay has been operating in crisis mode for some time now. For four months it had no funding. Its employees have been laid off and, while it waited and waited for a decision to be made, it risked closure.
Wawatay is important to Northern Ontario. Those who live and work in the far north rely upon it to send and receive their news.
It is hard to understand why a straightforward funding decision had to be so delayed. Wawatay is now in crisis.
If this is how Steven Harper manages the business of government, then he is no manager. If this is just another example of a government quietly rendering ineffective those programs that don’t fit its right-wing ideology, or only acting when public pressure is applied, then we should not allow it to happen quite so quietly.
This is no way to govern.
There is some good news. I, along with other Northern Ontario Liberal candidates and sitting members of the Liberal Party, wrote the Minister of Canadian Heritage asking him to act quickly to save this organization.
As I write this letter, Wawatay has now received news that there is a confirmation of funding. It is still not enough for its bank, but perhaps the rest of what needs to be done to save this valuable organization can now be completed.
This is no way to treat anyone. Wawatay and everyone who deals with our Government deserves better.
Yves Fricot
Liberal candidate,
Thunder Bay-Superior North
One more Conservative decision and one more reason why our next federal election will be an important one.
This month, another important part of our Canada and Northern Ontario was almost lost.
Wawatay Communications is an organization that publishes a bi-weekly community newspaper as well as a magazine for northern teens.
It operates a broadcasting station, produces television shows, provides translation services and manages a multimedia website all of which serve the needs of 60,000 northern First Nation people and the communities in which they live.
The Department of Canadian Heritage, through the Northern Aboriginal Broadcasting Program, supports organizations like Wawatay throughout Canada’s north. Since 2007, Wawatay has received annual funding.
These monies, and its advertising revenue, allow Wawatay to serve communities that stretch from James Bay to the Manitoba border. Unfortunately, Steven Harper’s government did not respond to a funding application that was submitted in January until this week.
Wawatay has been operating in crisis mode for some time now. For four months it had no funding. Its employees have been laid off and, while it waited and waited for a decision to be made, it risked closure.
Wawatay is important to Northern Ontario. Those who live and work in the far north rely upon it to send and receive their news.
It is hard to understand why a straightforward funding decision had to be so delayed. Wawatay is now in crisis.
If this is how Steven Harper manages the business of government, then he is no manager. If this is just another example of a government quietly rendering ineffective those programs that don’t fit its right-wing ideology, or only acting when public pressure is applied, then we should not allow it to happen quite so quietly.
This is no way to govern.
There is some good news. I, along with other Northern Ontario Liberal candidates and sitting members of the Liberal Party, wrote the Minister of Canadian Heritage asking him to act quickly to save this organization.
As I write this letter, Wawatay has now received news that there is a confirmation of funding. It is still not enough for its bank, but perhaps the rest of what needs to be done to save this valuable organization can now be completed.
This is no way to treat anyone. Wawatay and everyone who deals with our Government deserves better.
Yves Fricot
Liberal candidate,
Thunder Bay-Superior North
