A mobile registration session for Métis people in Lloydminster and area is planned for Wednesday and Thursday at the Lloydminster Métis Housing Group.
Registrar for the Métis Nation of Saskatchewan, Tammy Vallee shares that their staff will be in the Border City to lead the process. She points out the importance of getting registered as a citizen, since it is connected to accessing programming.
“Right now we have programs that help fund child care, medical transportation. Help for first time homebuyers or emergency repairs. And all these programs and funding is all tied to being a registered citizen. So we are always encouraging people to come out and get registered with us so they can access the current programs and services and the future ones that will be coming down the road.”
Vallee offers encouragement for people who have difficulty locating various documents. She says they have developed partnerships with agencies like Vital Statistics in Saskatchewan and Alberta to obtain missing documentation.
“We’ve been ordering those and they are usually the harder records to get because they are either restricted or they come with a cost associated with them; the birth and the marriage records. We can help citizens when they apply by ordering those (records) on their behalf from each of the provinces.”
She says some people may need several documents or birth records to connect them to their grandparents or great-grandparents and they can take on the task of getting these ordered.
She notes for adoption records they are still working with officials on various issues.
“Those are a trickier thing too. We are working with the different provinces about how we can develop partnerships and agreements that will hopefully remove those barriers. We are not there yet. Adoption records over the last 10-years; a lot of the provinces have changed their legislation to make them more accessible to people. It does not always apply to everybody and those are the situations that we are trying to develop partnerships to help citizens to remove that barrier.”
On Wednesday Sept. 21, the registration session will run from noon to 4 p.m. Then on Thursday Sept. 22, the team will lead another session from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m.