Funding for Inuit women ‘offensive,’ ‘discriminatory’: Pauktuutit president

Rebecca Kudloo, the president of Pauktuutit Inuit Women of Canada, says the amount of federal funding going towards Inuit women is "offensive" and "discriminatory."

Of $27 million that the federal government provides in project funding to Canadian aboriginal organizations, Kudloo says in a news release, Pauktuutit, which represents Inuit women across Canada, gets only about half a percentage of that amount, or $155,000.

Of the $7 million of federal money spent on family violence prevention and protection, Inuit women get only $75,000 or one per cent of the total.

“With all the social ills in the North, it doesn’t make sense that we’re receiving very little money to help women deal with abuse,” Kudloo says.

Budget cut by 10%

Kudloo also says funding cuts are hurting Pauktuutit and making it hard to provide meaningful programs for Inuit women and girls.

“We keep getting cut in our funding and we’re finding it hard to operate,” Kudloo says. “We're finding it hard to do the projects that we want to do.”

She says Pauktuutit’s operating budget, most of which comes from the federal government, was cut by about 10 per cent this year, from $440,000 to $396,000.

The Inuit organization says it gets the rest of its money through funding for individual projects.

Kudloo says it's expensive for staff to travel to the communities where Pauktuutit provides services. Those include communities in Nunavut, Labrador, northern Quebec and the Northwest Territories.

The office for the Federal Minister of Status of Women did not return CBC's request for comment.

Pauktuutit has seven employees working out of its office in Ottawa.