The Vital Role of Native Friendship Centres

Native Friendship Centres play a vital role in providing services to urban Indigenous peoples. There is a Native Friendship Centre in La Tuque, Chibougamau, Senneterre, Val-d’Or, Loretteville (Québec), Montréal, Joliette, Sept-Îles, Chicoutimi, Roberval and Maniwaki. The one in La Tuque also has a point of service in Trois-Rivières. These centres are non-profit community organizations that provide various services, such as assistance in finding housing, referral services, social services, employment assistance, development of cultural and artistic activities, homework assistance and much more. They are a gathering place and cultural anchoring space for Indigenous people. Founded in 1976, the Regroupement des centres d’amitié autochtones du Québec now represents most of the Native Friendship Centres in Québec. It has played a key role in opening and supporting the development of new friendship centres in the past several years.

Older centres, in particular the Cree Indian Centre of Chibougamau (now called the Chibougamau Eenou Friendship Centre) and the Native Friendship Centre of Senneterre, have seen their mission change significantly over the years. For decades, they provided housing solutions and shelter services seven days a week. The Native Friendship Centre of Senneterre opened in 1978 with the mission “to assist a nomadic population of Cree, Algonquin and Atikamekw members, for whom housing was the priority need. Senneterre is located at the junction of Highway 113 and the railway line, so a good number of Aboriginal people would go there for provisions and all kinds of services.” (Bordeleau and Mouterde 2008, 50) Today, the services offered are primarily geared to the needs of Indigenous people and families who live in Senneterre and the surrounding area, either temporarily or permanently – sometimes for generations.

The same is true of the Chibougamau Eenou Friendship Centre, which was founded in 1969 and was the first Native Friendship Centre in Québec. Prior to construction of the Cree community of Oujé-Bougoumou in 1989, Cree families were scattered throughout the region. The new friendship centre would thus become a meeting and gathering place for the Crees as well as for the many members of the communities of Mistissini, Waswanipi and Nemaska who were in transit there. For years, the centre provided accommodation to Cree women from Mistissini, 90 kilometres to the North, while they waited to deliver their babies at the hospital in Chibougamau. Out of a total population of approximately 8,000, the city of Chibougamau has roughly 800 Aboriginal inhabitants, mostly Cree. With the construction of the new village of Oujé-Bougoumou and the taking over of patient services by the Cree Board of Health and Social Services, the Chibougamau Eenou Friendship Centre can now concentrate on develo- ping activities that meet the needs of Aboriginal commu- nity members residing in or in transit through Chibougamau.