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Churchill MP urges Ottawa to renew funding for healing foundation

UNDATED -- Undated handout photo of 2008 NDP candidate Niki Ashton (Churchill) -- Manitoba

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UNDATED -- Undated handout photo of 2008 NDP candidate Niki Ashton (Churchill) -- Manitoba (CNS)

WINNIPEG - Churchill NDP-MP Niki Ashton is urging the Canadian government to extend a funding agreement to avoid job losses and counselling services in many northern communities.

The 11-year funding agreement between the Aboriginal Healing Foundation -- an organization that provides counselling services to residential school survivors -- and the federal government is set to expire in March 2010, Ashton said Wednesday. The Conservative government has not committed to renewing it.

"The loss of the foundation means the loss of the only source of funding for healing programming targeted at residential school survivors and their families," Ashton told an audience of former residential-school students and the media.

The Aboriginal Healing Foundation operates 139 projects across Canada, 27 of them in Manitoba communities. Ashton estimates 950 jobs would be lost in northern communities if the funding agreement is not renewed.

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