"Native Organizations Will Fight Huge Cuts in Federal Funding"

OTTAWA (CP) - The Assembly of First Nations and 27 other native organizations are losing most of their federal funding.

A spokesman for the Assembly of First Nations said the organization was informed Friday it will lose $592,000 in core funding as of July 1.

"The Indian leadership has been a thorn in the side of this government for some time now," Ovide Mercredi said in a telephone interview about an hour after learning the news. "We have forced this government to deal with issues that it does not want to deal with... They're trying to destroy our ability to represent our own people as effectively as we have done in the past.

"In effect, we are being penalized for being too effective in representing the interests of the Indian people."

Mercredi said the native leadership plans to meet to form a strategy to fight the cuts.

The funding was chopped in Tuesday's federal budget. Secretary of State funding for multicultural groups will be reduced by $23 million a year in 1990-91 and 1991-92.

The native organizations got their money under the aboriginal representative program, which is being cut by $3.4 million.

Mercredi said the assembly also gets some money from the Department of Indian and Northern Affairs, but the Secretary of State grant is the major source of revenue for the organization.