A Yellowknife MLA says a proposed budget cut to an NWT family violence shelter network will remove important funding.
Great Slave MLA Kate Reid recently told the legislature she and other MLAs had received a letter from the Family Violence Shelter Network asking for help reinstating a $100,000 Building Shelter Capacity fund, which is slated to be cut in the NWT’s 2025-26 operating budget.
“These funds are vital to the work the network does to train and build capacity of shelter staff to meet GNWT service standards,” Reid said.
The network is a partnership between YWCA NWT, safe home projects in Fort Good Hope and Fort Simpson, and family violence shelters in Yellowknife, Hay River, Fort Smith, Inuvik and Tuktoyaktuk.
Several members of the network came to the legislature to watch the discussion last Thursday.
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Lesa Semmler, the NWT’s minister of health and social services, previously told MLAs the funding being cut was used to bring shelter staff to Yellowknife for training. She said that training is now done online.
Following questions from Reid on Thursday, Semmler acknowledged the biggest loss from the funding cut would be the ability for shelter network members to have multiple face-to-face meetings a year.
“Trauma-informed training can be appropriate for virtual environments but the department is also committed to … supporting the networks to find ways for them to support each other in their communities, within their networks, within the community networks,” the minister said.
In the letter to MLAs, members of the shelter network said the fund supports professional development, debriefing, and camaraderie for members “whose staff turns over frequently and whose work is often emotionally draining.”
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They said the money has also allowed NWT shelters to work on joint projects and the network has leveraged the grant to help secure additional funding from other levels of government.
“We find it hard to believe that gutting the network’s budget is in the best interest of the residents of this territory,” the letter to MLAs stated, adding the NWT has the second-highest rate of family violence in Canada.
Beyond cutting the fund, the network said it was informed the NWT government is cancelling its multi-year contract due to economic challenges the territory is facing. It argued that does not align with the 20th Assembly’s priority of safe residents and communities.
Semmler said her department currently invests $3.8 million annually to fund family violence shelters in the NWT.
“We can say with all of our NGOs that yes, it’s probably not enough,” she said.
“Every single NGO and the work they do could use more money and I think that’s the thing we’re trying to do. We’re trying to use every little federal piece of dollars that we can … to support some of those NGOs.”
Semmler said while she would like to say the NWT government is “continuing to find ways to work together with NGOs and to support them … this is the funding that has been allocated for this year.”
The NWT government is planning a total of $9.1 million in spending reductions in its latest budget, alongside a little more than $1 million in increased revenues.
That’s well below the $150-million annual target in its fiscal responsibility strategy.
