Latest news with #FNS
Cision Canada
29-04-2025
- Politics
- Cision Canada
First Nations Summit Congratulates Prime Minister Mark Carney and the new Liberal minority government
(Xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam), Sḵwx̱wú7mesh (Squamish) and səlilwətaɬ (Tsleil-Waututh)/VANCOUVER, BC, April 29, 2025 /CNW/ - First Nations Summit (FNS) leaders congratulate Prime Minister Mark Carney and the Liberals following yesterday's federal election which as of now has the Liberal party winning enough seats to form a minority government. "Congratulations to Prime Minister Carney and the Liberals. We encourage the Prime Minister and his caucus to take the necessary steps to ensure a stable government over the next four years where Indigenous issues are at the centre of the government agenda," said Chief Cheryl Casimer of the First Nations Summit Political Executive. "We must work together to address pressing issues of importance to our communities including continuing implementation of the Recognition and Reconciliation of Rights Policy for Treaty Negotiations in British Columbia (RRR Policy), which adopts the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples as a foundation for the BC treaty negotiations framework and provides for the recognition and continuation of unextinguished Indigenous titles and rights, including the right of self-determination, as the starting point for negotiations. The minority government must also continue with fulsome implementation of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples Act, addressing the devastating opioid emergency, ongoing work to end the Missing and murdered Indigenous women, girls and 2SLGBTQI+ people crisis, including implementation of the 231 Calls for Justice, and justice and policing reform, to name a few." "We recognize a priority for the Liberal government will be to continue its response to the Trump tariffs and the resulting economic uncertainty. The federal government must ensure that any response, respects and upholds the inherent and constitutionally protected title and rights and jurisdictions of First Nations," said Robert Phillips of the FNS Political Executive. "Much of the economies of First Nations in BC are directly tied to resource development, a sector that will be heavily impacted by continuation of the Trump administration tariffs. Economic opportunities and other relief for First Nations must be prioritized and expedited as part of any ongoing response. Stronger, more prosperous First Nations communities will benefit all Canadians." "The Canadian electorate has once again indicated they are not confident enough to give any one party a majority. Instead, the election result represents status quo and a challenge for the minority government to work with other parties to gain confidence and to effect real tangible change that benefits Canadians, especially Indigenous peoples. The minority government must work with First Nations to take concrete actions with measurable outcomes in an effort to close the disparate socio-economic gaps faced by our communities," said Hugh Braker of the FNS Political Executive. Some of the key Liberal commitments that FNS leaders expect the new minority government to act on as soon as possible include: Work in full partnership with First Nation, Inuit, and Métis to advance and realize the rights of Indigenous Peoples through a distinctions-based approach. Work in partnership on the implementation of treaties, land claim, and self-government agreements. Support Indigenous-led processes for advancing self-determination and the exercise of jurisdiction in priority areas such as education, health, child and family services as well as community safety and policing. Implement the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples Act and the Action Plan. Move forward on the important work of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission's Calls to Action and support Indigenous communities to uncover unmarked and undocumented graves and burial sites at residential schools. Move forward on the implementation the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls Calls for Justice and the National Action Plan. Immediately introduce and pass legislation affirming that First Nations have a human right to clean drinking water. Revitalize Indigenous languages by supporting community-driven projects that restore, protect, and promote this important part of First Nations, Inuit, and Métis cultures and histories. The FNS looks forward to Prime Minister Carney naming his new Cabinet in the coming weeks and will be requesting early meetings with key ministers to discuss the federal Indigenous agenda. The FNS also holds our hands up to, and commends outgoing NDP leader Jagmeet Singh for his years of public service as well as all of the Indigenous people across the country who put their name forward as candidates for election during the 2025 campaign, especially those who ran in BC ridings.
The Guardian
20-03-2025
- Politics
- The Guardian
Trump administration ‘villainizes' immigrant families with misleading directive on food aid
The Trump administration is now using popular anti-hunger programs, including food assistance and school lunch, as part of its attack against immigrants in the US – a move many say will prevent large numbers of families, especially children, from getting the food benefits they're eligible for. In a recent memo, agriculture secretary Brooke Rollins told senior staff at the USDA's Food and Nutrition Service (FNS): 'It is essential to use all available legal authority to end any incentives in FNS benefit programs that encourage illegal immigration.' In the accompanying press release, Rollins said, 'The days in which taxpayer dollars are used to subsidize illegal immigration are over.' While Rollins's directive does not change people's access, researchers, advocates and service providers say it's spreading misinformation about undocumented immigrants and could create a chilling effect among immigrant and mixed-status families – a trend seen during the first Trump administration. 'It's posturing to try to harm communities,' said Juan Carlos Gomez, an immigration and immigrant families senior policy analyst at the Center for Law and Social Policy (Clasp), of the memo. Undocumented immigrants have been ineligible for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (Snap), which is used by more than 42 million people, long before Trump's first term, and even immigrants who are authorized to be in the US have to wait five years before applying. 'That nugget of misinformation from the secretary', he said, is like a seed that will continue to grow, so that people start 'thinking undocumented immigrants are getting benefits they're not'. Other FNS programs, such as the National School Lunch Program, which provides low-cost or free lunches to around 30 million schoolchildren, or the Emergency Food Assistance Program (TEFAP), which supplements the diets for low-income families with free USDA foods distributed by food banks, don't have citizenship requirements like Snap. 'It really feels like immigrant families are being targeted to have food taken away from their plates in their households,' said California State University, San Bernadino professor Emily Loveland, who researches social welfare programs like Snap. Snap, which offers an average of about $6 per day per person, is already difficult to access and use. There are complicated eligibility rules and applicants must submit verification and complete an interview to receive food benefits. Both Democrats and Republicans have made cuts or changes to Snap in the past, and House Republicans have recently targeted the program in its budget reconciliation as a way to pay for an extension of the 2017 tax bill that benefits the very wealthy. '[The directive] is part of a broader story to villainize people who receive benefits,' said Lily Roberts, the managing director for inclusive growth at the Center for American Progress. 'It's ultimately part of a plan to get rid of benefits, whether through administrative action, illegal Doge work or the congressional reconciliation plan to cut Snap and Medicaid as a trade for tax cuts for the wealthy.' If the Trump administration wants to change people's access to Snap, it can only be done by changing the law, not by executive order or directive. Still, even the perceived threat of policy change is enough to produce chilling effects that directly impact the health of immigrant households in the US. Research has shown that in 2016, a proposed change to the public charge rule – which determines if people seeking immigration status would be likely to become dependent on government assistance – led to 'significant and large decreases' in immigrant families' participation in food and nutrition assistance programs such as Snap, the School Breakfast Program and the National School Lunch Program. 'I think we learned in the first Trump administration that rhetoric matters a lot for people's actual behavior,' said Chloe East, an economics professor at the University of Colorado Denver who studies safety net and social insurance programs and immigration policy. 'Even households with US citizen kids in them will be less likely to receive Snap because the parents are afraid it might impact their immigration status or it might lead to a deportation.' One-quarter of all US children have at least one immigrant parent, and around 4.4 million of them live with an undocumented parent. Based on Census Bureau data from 2016 through 2019, Migration Policy Institute researchers found that participation in Snap, Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (Tanf) and Medicaid declined twice as fast among noncitizens as citizens during the first three years of the first Trump administration. During that time, Snap participation fell by 37%. In 2020, the controversial public charge revisions went into effect, making it harder for immigrants to obtain green cards or temporary visas if they participated in federal means-tested public benefit programs like Snap. The entire process sowed confusion and fear, so that even refugees and children born in the US – groups who aren't required to have a public charge assessment – went without needed food assistance because they worried about themselves or a family member being denied a green card. (The Trump administration's public charge rule was later struck down by multiple courts and withdrawn by the Biden administration.) Based on what happened with public charge in the past, Clasp's Gomez and other immigrant advocates expect to see a similar pattern of disenrollment in Snap and other nutrition programs because of the agriculture secretary's memo, which was published 25 February, along with other anti-immigrant policies from the administration. 'These executive orders and directives are confusing service providers who already have to deal with this long laundry list of who is eligible for what,' he said. 'That's the effect we're going to see across all immigrant communities, this confusion of what people are or aren't eligible for even though at the end of the day, an executive order or a secretary putting out a letter doesn't change the law.' East expected the new administration to come after immigration eligibility or immigrants' access to Snap via changes around work requirements or some kind of public charge rule again. 'What I did not expect was the current budget reconciliation proposals, which would really gut the program overall,' she said. 'They're using all the non-legislative tools they can to reduce access to Snap, but what will happen legislatively is very hard to predict.' Loveland thinks the USDA could try to adjust requirements for nutrition programs that don't require proof of citizenship, such as school food programs and TEFAP, which could ultimately mean that undocumented people may no longer be able to access them and would have to rely on already strained private charity food programs or risk food insecurity. If the National School Lunch Program was restricted, it could mean undocumented students would go without free or reduced price school meals. 'Though their plans to restrict any policy requirements are currently vague, my concern is that even an announcement of an intent to target these programs could have a chilling effect amongst immigrant families, like what happened with Snap and the 2019 public charge rule,' she said. 'They're pivoting their concerns to an ideological attack on immigrants, which isn't even based in fact or reality.'
Yahoo
15-02-2025
- Yahoo
One dead following New Orleans car crash
NEW ORLEANS (WGNO) — A man is dead following a car crash that happened in New Orleans in the early morning hours of Saturday, Feb. 15. According to the New Orleans Police Department, report came in at 1:38 a.m. of the crash, which happened at the Interstate 10 onramp of N. Claiborne Avenue and St. Phillip Street. Multi-vehicle crash reported in Slidell Police say two vehicles were allegedly racing each other on N. Claiborne Avenue, headed east. As they were racing, one of the vehicles reportedly 'failed to negotiate a turn' near St. Phillip Street, hitting a guardrail, flipping over and landing on a tree. Two people, a 24-year-old man and a 23-year-old woman, were in the car. The man was pronounced dead on scene, while the woman was taken to a hospital with unknown injuries. The second vehicle did not crash, and no other injuries were reported. The cause of death and identity of the victim will be determined by the coroner after his family has been notified. No further information was 2025 Oscars won't use this 'lovely' format for the acting awards — and it might be for the best US Army bans transgender people from enlisting First homes and weddings have never been more expensive — Here's how to afford both FNS: Newman's RJ Livingston is thriving in new role as leader NOFD responds to Seventh Ward house fire Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
