Proceedings of the Standing Senate Committee on
Aboriginal Peoples
Issue 8 - Evidence - Meeting of June 9, 2010
OTTAWA, Wednesday, June 9, 2010
The Standing Senate Committee on Aboriginal Peoples met this day at 6:45 p.m. to examine the federal government's constitutional, treaty, political and legal responsibilities to First Nations, Inuit and Metis peoples, and other matters generally relating to the Aboriginal Peoples of Canada (topic: issues concerning First Nations Education).
Senator Gerry St. Germain (Chair) in the chair.
[English]
The Chair: I welcome all honourable senators, members of the public and all viewers across the country who are watching these proceedings of the Standing Senate Committee on Aboriginal Peoples on either CPAC or possibly on the web.
I am Gerry St. Germain from British Columbia, chair of the committee. The committee is undertaking a study to examine possible strategies for reform concerning First Nations primary and secondary education with a view to improving outcomes. Among other things, the study will focus on tripartite education agreements, governance and delivery structures, and possible legislative frameworks.
Tonight, honourable senators, we are extremely pleased to have with us Corinne Mount Pleasant-Jetté, who has, among her many accomplishments, earned an Order of Canada in 1992 for the active promotion of achievement in the Aboriginal community. Ms. Mount Pleasant-Jetté is a member of the Tuscarora First Nation and is a former professor in the Faculty of Engineering and Computer Science at Concordia University. She now leads Mount Pleasant Educational Services, a non-profit corporation that provides consulting and educational resources for Aboriginal students.
Having written on Aboriginal issues for over 25 years, Ms. Mount Pleasant-Jetté contributed to the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples. In 2002, she was appointed chair of the minister's National Working Group on First Nations Education.
In 1993, she co-founded the Native Access to Engineering Program. Among its other activities, the program pursued research on the question of why so few young Aboriginal people choose post-secondary studies in engineering and applied science. The committee is most anxious to hear what proposals for solutions might have come out of this research.
[Translation]
Before we hear from our witness, I would like to introduce the members of the committee who are here this evening.
[English]
Senator Sibbeston is from the Northwest Territories. The Deputy Chair of this committee, Senator Dyck, is from Saskatchewan. Senator Dallaire is from the province of Quebec. Senator Brazeau is from the province of Quebec. Senator Stewart Olsen is from New Brunswick, and Senator Poirier is from the province of New Brunswick.
Last but definitely not least, Senator Raine is from the great province of British Columbia.
Members of the committee, please help me in welcoming our witness. Ms. Mount Pleasant-Jetté, please proceed with your presentation. As we discussed, I would like you to keep your presentation brief so that there is adequate time for senators to ask questions, have a full exchange with you, and possibly build on the knowledge that you have acquired over the years. I would also ask senators to keep their questions brief. Doctor, you have the floor.
Corinne Mount Pleasant-Jetté, President, Mount Pleasant Educational Services Inc.: Thank you, Mr. Chair. I am pleased to have been invited to speak to you this evening. I begin by bringing you greetings from the Tuscarora First Nation on my reserve at the Six Nations of the Grand River in Ohsweken, Ontario. I will also bring you greetings from my workplace where I am situated on Mohawk territory in Kahnawake, Quebec. I thank the people of the Algonquin territory for sharing their land and allowing me onto their territory with a fine welcome.
I am here tonight with a bit of trepidation, I guess, trying to condense several years' worth of work. If I were titling this evening, I at one point thought I would title it ``38 years and counting.'' That refers to 1972, when the issue of education for Aboriginal children arose and was treated with a policy change entitled Indian Control of Indian Education.
I am well aware that you are informed and concerned about this issue and that you have had a number of witnesses come through, and, I presume, the committee will hear from others. I will try to focus my words tonight on my interest in the research we have conducted, and I might leave some of the other issues to the technical presenters.
I am here to tell you that in spite of the long-standing situation, I would like to emphasize the word ``urgency.'' This is an immediate problem that needs an immediate solution, but I am realistic enough to know that this will not happen overnight. The Standing Senate Committee on Aboriginal Peoples, however, can highlight and press some of the more key areas that need action. I commend you, first, for focusing on this issue, and I am eager to see the kinds of information that you receive and the kinds of results that come from it. In my view, the Government of Canada has a strong moral as well as a legal obligation to address First Peoples' education in this country.
We have seen in recent years, for want of a better word that Aboriginal education has become a hot topic. From the Council of Ministers of Education in Canada, the Conference Board, the Caledon Institute, think-tank's, academics and, interestingly, from the private sector as well, attention is now focused on something that many of us in the Aboriginal world have known for years. There is a serious problem, but an incredible opportunity at the same time.
I see that in some of the testimony before you, you have heard statistics — and statistics are rampant — about how many children we have in this community. I am struck by a map that was issued by Statistics Canada that showed the presence of young people in this country. It was like little stick pins that were all over the map of Canada. Each pin was represented by a red dot. In my experience, throughout the centre third of Canada, which has a fairly significant rural and growing population, there are a lot of children. However, when you reach the Far North areas — and, again, I see senators here who are well affair of this — the whole top third of the map of Canada was red. Each dot represented children. These are the kinds of issues that Canadians are unaware of. We are aware of the retirement of baby boomers, and we see all kinds of information about the labour force shortages in professions and trades, but I am not entirely certain that this message has spread widely enough until recently.
Recently, as the private sector in natural resources and various other government-regulated industries have been looking for workers and plying their trade in the northern areas of Canada, they understand clearly that they need qualified, excellent workers from the areas where they function. I am in touch with, the forestry sector, the mining sector and the telecommunications sector. Actually, they are in touch with me. All of these different natural resource industries are in hyper-mode right now, trying to address the need for Aboriginal people to come and work for them. In some sense, I am a little pleased to see this because maybe that is where the momentum must come from, because 38 years ago there was a problem, and here we sit tonight discussing the same thing.
I will move on to tell you, without great detail that the whole issue of how Canada interacts with Aboriginal citizens in this country has been a national problem for years. None other than the former chief commissioner of the Canadian Human Rights Commission, Max Yalden, made it a point every year, when he issued his annual report, to talk about Canada's performance in terms of its relationship with First Nations.
We need, as a country, a strong labour force. We need a labour force composed of people who know this country and who come from here. There is no question that Canada is a composite of immigrant peoples. We made our history through the influx of newcomers to our territory, and it has worked well. However, at the same time, we are now at a point where we have a burgeoning population of young children who are First Nations, Inuit, Metis, who live in rural, remote, semi-urban and urban communities in this country and who should be contributing to the Canadian labour force. Ladies and gentlemen, these young people will become another statistic if we do not do something.
We need a sense of purpose. As the Standing Senate Committee on Aboriginal Peoples, your purpose, I hope, is to learn, understand and report to the Government of Canada on issues of concern. Education is an extremely important issue. I am sure your research team will provide you with mountains of paper. Reports that have been written on this issue exist all over the country — in government departments, in universities, in libraries. You referred at one point to a report that I co-authored, as a group — the minister's National Working Group on First Nations Education, which reported to Parliament in 2002. As the chair mentioned earlier, I was also a writer and researcher for the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples and that report was deposited in 1995.
I was working on labour force issues earlier than that. As the chair of the External Advisory Committee on Employment Equity to the Treasury Board of Canada, we also issued reports on the fact that Aboriginal people were non-participating.
You have heard many witnesses; there are many more to come. I just want to stop for one second before going on to ask you why we are here. Why we are here is right there in an illustration of children's faces. This is the view of how many children we have in this country from all provinces and territories. All of the statistics tell us so.
The simple fact is everyone has connections to children. I am a teacher so I can ask how many of you have grandchildren or children in your lives and I am sure all the hands would go up. In some way, shape or form, you interact with children. When you interact with children, the one constant — and please bear with me here — is that they do not stop growing. They just keep growing.
I deal with engineers. I spent 27 years teaching in an engineering faculty at Concordia, so I would speak to the engineering profession in various and sundry gatherings, and the only thing I could impress on them is that there is a constant in this issue. The longer we do not address it, the longer we take to avoid it, to hand it off to someone else, to simply say we are studying; these kids do not stop growing. They continue and in every year, every decade that the issue remains, we lose another generation.
Pardon the props, but I have to do this. In July 1979, this little person came into the world and I was talking to a parliamentary committee about Aboriginal education. Well, I am back here again in June 2010. Here is another little person who was born this year. This person is 31 years old. He is her father. They are both status Indians; they are both card-carrying members of First Nations in this country and we have not fixed it yet; you have not fixed it yet — far be it for me to be so presumptuous. Members of this chamber have a huge responsibility. The level of influence does not get higher in terms of importance and impact. Your remarks could make a significant difference.
I am here because our elders talk to us about the importance of what we do now and that it will have an impact in the future. What we use as a guideline is to say what we do today will impact seven generations from now. So, yes, that is why I am here. I have not given up on this path that I have been pursuing for so many years.
I will stop here. There are many documents and reports that I have with me that I will deposit for your information, but I know that you want to move to questioning.
I believe that there are foundations for success that need to be addressed, and I have them in two groups. The first group deals with general needs. We need political will in this country — political will from the federal, provincial and Aboriginal governments. We need public policy change. Without question, public policy changes will make a difference. Whether it concerns responsibility for education or standards for teaching, we need public policy changes.
We need leadership, and I say that leadership is a foundation for success because leadership comes at many levels, from strong principals in schools to chiefs in council to the senators on this committee and to your colleagues in the Senate. Leadership has to come from everywhere.
We need long-term commitments. When I began working with my engineering colleagues and said I wanted to have a native access to engineering program, the first thing the president of the professional corporation of engineers in Quebec said was, ``That is wonderful, yes. Aboriginal people, yes. How many engineers can I have in five years?'' I looked at him straight in the face and said, ``None.'' He said, ``How many engineers can I have in 10 years?'' I said, ``Very likely none.'' He looked at me and said, ``Why do you want to do this? Why do you want to convince young people to become engineers if you do not think it will happen?'' I said, ``It will happen, but it takes a long-term commitment.'' I am pleased to tell you that after 15 years of work at Concordia University in Montreal, the tide is beginning to turn. We are producing some engineers in this country.
Another foundation for success is high expectations. Students, whether they are toddlers, high school or post- secondary, will rise to the level of expectations that they receive from their parents, their community and their teachers. If we have no hope, if we do not care, if we are actually racially sorting kids out saying that those children cannot learn, then, clearly, the students will not perform.
Another measure of the broad general meaning of success is that we need attitude adjustments. We need to raise the value of education, be it formal or experiential learning. We need to raise the attitude of excitement about learning in our communities.
I will move now to the more mechanical aspects of success. Foundations for success require things like infrastructure — buildings, bricks, mortar, IT, high-speed connections. Until those things exist, we will not achieve this.
I believe we also need something that I have called organizational structure. That is a polite way to say ``fix things.'' You mentioned governance; I think you talked about legislative frameworks. We need organizational structure to underlie success in Aboriginal education. I think it takes school boards and committees that discuss curriculum. It takes councils of elders who bring indigenous knowledge and integrate it into curricula.
Another thing for success is managerial capacity. I used the term ``handing off'' responsibility previously. In 1972, the government in this country gave responsibility essentially for education to First Nations through the policy called Indian Control of Indian Education. Unfortunately, all it did was hand off responsibility. In the ensuing 38 years, a number of First Nations have achieved excellence in educational management, but it is few and far between and it is very sporadic. While we have some good, strong administrators now, we do not have enough. You cannot manage your own affairs in education unless you have the capacity to do so.
The next foundation for success is my principal point for coming here tonight and it is all about teachers and teaching. I have many notes and thoughts about it that we can deal with later. Unless we deal with the crisis in teaching and teachers, all the work in the world will not help. In the past 15 years, we have had seven biannual workshops for teachers.
We called them ``DreamCatching'' because we believe that teachers are dream catchers. We offer teachers who work with Aboriginal students very direct opportunities, teaching them math and science, et cetera — it is very hands on.
I am sure you know well that across mainstream Canada and North America, there are many teachers who teach mathematics who have never taken a course beyond high school. They wanted to be physical education and English teachers and they are teaching chemistry. This is not a problem unique to First Nations. We have to address that problem.
Teachers have no voice. I want to repeat that, because you can change it: Teachers have no voice.
There are three last things we need for foundations for success. We need ongoing professional development for teachers, administrators and everyone involved. We need strong, culturally relevant, contemporary curricula. There are publishers in Toronto right now who are frantically putting textbooks together because the governments of Alberta and Saskatchewan will not buy a textbook unless it has Aboriginal content. It is about time.
Last week there was an announcement of an accord for indigenous education, where the deans of education in this country came together. They are essentially saying they will address indigenous issues with their undergraduate students. I say it is about time. I want to be positive and think that it will make a change, but it is a long time coming. Teachers in this country do not know the history of this country, and yet they are teaching the young people who are a part of our history.
I have a last point, which I will not discuss at length because it is a horrifically huge topic, is the whole issue of evaluation and measurement. Foundations for success require that we have a way to measure. The terminology I believe you are using, ``comparability as a means of closing the achievement gap between non-Aboriginal Canadians and Aboriginal students,'' is just one little piece of the puzzle.
I will stop there and tell you that I have one point about a national educational association that I want to address further before the evening is out.
The Chair: The reason we decided to study this subject, Ms. Mount Pleasant-Jetté, is simply because, under the leadership of Senator Sibbeston, we launched an inquiry on economic development and then we went into governance. The recurring theme was the question of education.
I and some of the senators will recall this anecdote. When we were in Thunder Bay, I believe Wasaya Airways made a presentation to us. I happen to be a commercial pilot, and I took a particular interest in their presentation. I asked the fellow how many pilots they had in this First Nation airline. He said, ``I think we have one.'' I said, ``You only have one? What is the problem?'' He said to the committee, ``Unfortunately, our students are too weak in math and science to meet the requirements to do the ground school flight training.''
A light went on for me and some of us on the committee, who have been here for a while, such as Senator Sibbeston and Senator Dyck. We realized then that not only was there a gap but there were so many missed opportunities. When an airline owned by a First Nation could not employ their own people because of the fact that they were not up to the levels, there is an issue. You made mention of a method of measuring the proficiencies of students. That is why we are here. Delay is deadly on this issue. We agree with you. Hopefully, we can come up with something that will work. We are certainly pleased that you have taken time out to speak to us today.
Senator Dallaire: This year, there are nine Aboriginal cadets at Royal Military College, and all have passed. Last year, there were 12 Aboriginal cadets although they did not have the same success rate. However, the quality of those students has been outstanding. Continuing that rhythm of about that many students a year, will establish a substantial leadership cadre for the recruitment of more Aboriginal people into the Armed Forces. It is an initiative that was worked out between the Aboriginal peoples and the Armed Forces, particularly through the ranger program and so on.
There are solutions. RMC is a federally funded university, meant to produce officers for the Canadian Armed Forces. In the middle and top tier of the country, there is no institution that is federally funded to produce Aboriginal leaders in this country. Am I correct in saying that?
Ms. Mount Pleasant-Jetté: Yes, with some exceptions. In other words, there are post-secondary training institutions. Whether they are wholly federally funded is another question. Most of them are in some kind of partnership agreement with provincial agencies.
Senator Dallaire: Yes, but the link I am trying to make is that you have an institution that believes it has to instil ethos, must respect a certain culture and it has its objectives of producing leaders for a specific demand, which is the Armed Forces. The federal government has realized that and sees how essential it is to have that corps. Officers are produced in different universities, but a corps has to be produced.
Why, then, do we not recognize that a corps of Aboriginal leaders is needed and that we should have a federally structured leadership institute of higher learning for Aboriginal people? Why not create something or at least instil that concept within the federal government to fund that idea?
Ms. Mount Pleasant-Jetté: I want to refer to the RMC experience. Different branches of the military, for years, have been addressing and trying to recruit Aboriginal people into various levels of responsibility and not just the top leadership ranks but also the trades we are looking at. They have done a great deal of work.
A former public servant, who was actually a mentor of mine years ago, Clarence Chabot, who used to work at Treasury Board, has been working with the military for probably 10 years. He has been doing so to achieve this level of success and to find students to recruit into RMC.
However, I am not sure we are ready for this idea of a separate institution. We are not ready because, while there are certainly high achieving, high performing, brilliant young people, the numbers are still too low. The vast majority of our students are high school dropouts, and drop out even at grade 6 and grade 8. For the majority of our children, that is their educational experience right now.
I commend your thinking. We need those kinds of institutions and I believe that the federal government needs to drive them. However, I am not sure that building a school right now, or putting together an institution of some sort, would warrant economy of scale. There would not be enough takers.
Many young people in Indian country, in First Nations territories around the southern part of Canada, are strongly attached to the military. In my reserve, many kids like the military, and they join the U.S. Marines. They do not join the Canadian Forces, which has been a thorn in the side of my colleague for years.
Senator Dallaire: The number of First Nations joining the U.S. Marines is less today than it was during the Vietnam War. The attraction of that war was significant.
I still go back to the point that this is not a cost-effective exercise. RMC is not a cost-effective institution. The first graduating class was only 18 people. It is, however, the beacon of the whole of the institution and is perceived to create leadership.
I recently received an honorary diploma from St. Lawrence College in Brockville. St. Lawrence College in Brockville is focused on product. That is to say, they continuously go to industry to see what industry wants as technical or qualified people, and they build courses and programs to meet those demands. They give a guarantee of employment of over 90 per cent, because they are teaching students what industry demands.
We use that concept with the UN Development Program, UNDP, in developing nations. Why can we not institute that here?
Ms. Mount Pleasant-Jetté: I do not know if you are familiar with the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples report. It is 14,000 pages and there are 1,400 recommendations. It is four big volumes of text.
I had something to do with one recommendation in that report, which was to reverse employment equity — that employment equity did not work. Telling young people that they had all sorts of opportunity waiting for them, all they had to do was go to school and get in line and they would be hired, was just wrong.
I suggested in that report — and I still believe it — that the onus needs to be on employers. We need to have reverse employment equity where employers, to meet the challenges of the future, need to do the thinking now. They need to project what kind of workers they will need, what kind of education those workers will need, and make commitments that they will follow through with their human resources planning, based on those plans — which, as you talk about, are reversed. We should put the onus on the employers to say what they want and then build from that need.
You say why can this not work with Aboriginal people? I think it can, but it is a difficult call. I referred to an attitude adjustment as one of the foundations for success. It has been a negative experience for some employers over the last two or three decades, having worked with Aboriginal people, having lived near and around Aboriginal communities and having read the kinds of vicious media materials that are out there.
You talk about Brockville and Kingston. I am working with Queen's University because the Native Access to Engineering Program website has moved to Queen's Faculty of Applied Science and Engineering. There are still people who when you talk about the Mohawks and Indian people, all they remember is the fact that they blocked the trains. In Quebec, we still remember the Oka crisis and people pelting Indians with rocks on the Mercier Bridge. Those kinds of visual images and stereotypical media reports have a tremendously negative impact.
When employers are asked in the oil patch today to project how many riggers or heavy equipment operators they will need in the future they answer that they will think about it. Our experience was not positive 10 or 20 years ago. We have had a great deal of difficulty retaining our native employees.
To some extent, some negative experience has influenced the present reality. However, in more recent years, the positive experience of employers will help, and is helping. As I said, they are all looking at ways to incorporate Aboriginal people into their workforces. I am very optimistic that will work.
Senator Dallaire: Thirty-five years ago, in the Canadian army, we were told that you cannot fire artillery unless you fire it in English. Yet the Russians fired their artillery in Russian and the Italians fired theirs in Italian. It took a law, and that is only 35 years ago, for us to be able to shoot those guns in French. It is a long-range plan and I hope that is the perseverance you look at.
Ms. Mount Pleasant-Jetté: I thank you very much for the questions and the insight. I think there are serious connections here.
Senator Sibbeston: Ms. Mount Pleasant-Jetté, it is obvious from your presentation and your reports that you are very accomplished and active in the Aboriginal education field. I see your summary of foundations of success, and they are all reasonable, and things that other people have said.
In the end, it takes money. It seems, from the reports we are getting from the witnesses, that there is no more money. The federal government is in a situation where they seem to have reached a level of funding for education and they are not willing to go beyond that level.
I hope that our report can make a difference. We see many reports, everything from the royal commission to your report; we heard from a lady the other day that had provided many reports and good recommendations. Even in your recommendations, in terms of what you see as foundations of success, all these measures require money, but the answer always is that there is no money. I hope that our Senate committee can make recommendations and the federal government will listen and eventually more money will be forthcoming.
From your experience, is the future of First Nations education in the sphere of provincial education, such as universities and provincial education authorities? How much involvement can the federal government ever have in First Nations education?
They provide money at the moment, but they have no educational expertise. Does the federal government have any future in First Nations education or is it really in the provincial sphere, with First Nations taking over education with regional bodies and such?
Ms. Mount Pleasant-Jetté: I am composing my thoughts. The first thing we have to remember is our country is founded on certain agreements and treaties. These treaties still exist; they are historical documents and living documents.
You used two words that I would like to come back to when you talked about spending. There is always a response that there is not enough money and that this costs money and that costs money, and you said the government is not willing to go beyond a certain level. ``Not willing'' is, I think, an extremely good use of the term. It is absolutely correct. Is there enough money to fix Aboriginal education? I believe that although it will take far more than just money, we will certainly need more money.
I hate to sit here demanding, as a representative of a native organization, funding, funding, funding because that is not what I am advocating. When I talk about curriculum needs, of course it costs money; teacher training, of course; professional development, of course. However, we need to look at two important concepts. One is return on investment; the other is value for money.
In 1995, I was in Toronto. The former vice-president of the Royal Bank held a nice half-day meeting where he and his chief economist came to meet the business sector. The purpose of the meeting was to announce to them that the royal commission report had been deposited. Charlie Coffey and John McCallum met 100 presidents and CEOs from Bay Street at the Royal York. That event was called The Cost of Doing Nothing. One of the quotes from that presentation was an actuarial progression, a chart in the report of the event and on the wall that morning. It showed the spiralling cost of caring for First Nations people at the projected demographic growth. It was interesting because that was 1995, and one of the markers on John McCallum's graph was 2012. Well, honourable senators, we are almost there.
At 2016 there was a significant cross on this graph. It said that at 2016, if we continually support First Nations through welfare and social programs and all of those things, there is a finite limit where the Canadian government can actually afford it. The chief economist at that time used the words ``time bomb.'' It is an explosive situation. That sounded very passionate, and he was. It came out of the royal commission where we said exactly what you are saying. Where will you find the money? Our population growth it is not subsiding. I do not know if you are getting that information at the same time. As these graphs go up and all these little children turn 15 years of age— because that is when they turn to be parents, 15, 16, 17 years — that is when we will see an enormous jump in this curve. In the near future — 2012 and 2016 — we will reach a point where something has to change.
I do not believe that only money will fix this, but I want to come back to your suggestion that perhaps the federal government should give it off to the provinces or RMOs, regional management organizations, and let them handle the problem. I believe that is a full abrogation of responsibility of the government of this country. Canada has a responsibility, a moral obligation and a legal obligation. What do you do? Do you simply say, ``Sorry, folks. We cannot afford you any more''? My sense is if we act now it will cost less than it will a generation from now.
Senator Sibbeston: Just think of it — for all Indian and Northern Affairs' terrible history of dealing with Aboriginal people, can they be the salvation and saviours of First Nations in the area of education? That is a critical question. Without question, they are responsible constitutionally in every way but it is not happening. They are inept. They do not know how.
We have long experience in the North with the federal government. Our hope was to get out of the hold of the federal government because everything they did in the North was wrong; everything they did was costly. We felt that anything the federal government could do we could do better. We have responsible government now in the North, and there has been great growth since then.
First Nations in our country, in my view, should not look to the federal government and Indian Affairs as their saviour because there will be another 100 or 200 or 300 more years of failure and discouragement.
In the area of education, it is a local matter. Local communities control education. Wherever you are in the country, it is a long way from Ottawa. Education is a subject matter and an undertaking that is best done at the local level. The communities, the region and the province are best suited to deal such situations. That is why I think education can best be dealt with at that level, be it from First Nations or the province, but that is where the action and the work needs to be done.
Would you not agree, from your own experience, that things can best be done on the ground and that is really the hope with First Nations? If there is a big improvement at that level, you will see great success?
Ms. Mount Pleasant-Jetté: At this stage, the word ``devolution'' in Ottawa to me is partially at fault for the disasters we are living in education. There has been a dramatic decline in how much Indian Affairs has reduced, decreased and devolved. I think I read from some of this committee's testimony that 60 people are managing so many millions of dollars and 75,000 children. First, I think that is not true because they are not managing the children at all. First Nations are managing their children.
I am a little torn. You suggest that it might best be handled at the grassroots, community, territorial or provincial level. There is no question in my mind that statement is correct; we have human interaction in a classroom and in a community. Children learn from the people who are around them. I retired after 37 years of teaching. What I started doing 40 years ago, is a different world. Our children today learn differently with access to electronic technology. They are moving into a different world where communications and things are so different. We could use different technologies and methods to allow our children to learn. Those kinds of investments are impossible at the local community level.
Canada had something called SchoolNet and First Nations SchoolNet. I think it was part of the Information Highway Applications Branch of Industry Canada. I believe I recall a minister or some official standing up and saying that every child in Canada will have a computer and every community will have access to many things.
There was a community access program where you could acquire computers. They were delivered and sat in the back room because no one could plug them in. I will not bore you with more details.
I will say that responsibility for delivery of local education needs to be done at the local level; you are quite right. Funding and financial management at the local level can deliver education. However, there are far more costly aspects of this whole conundrum, such as teacher training, curriculum development, IT and electronic services. Getting a school in 2010 online with a dial-up modem is ridiculous, yet we have schools that do that in this country.
We have to be aware of what is lacking. Those things that are major investments must be done by the federal government. Before it gets too late, I want to raise that issue I said I wanted to talk about before I leave here tonight.
The Chair: Was that the national forum?
Ms. Mount Pleasant-Jetté: Yes, I am proposing something called the Canadian aboriginal education association, but I will take your questions first.
Senator Dyck: Thank you for your presentation. I will return to your comments regarding one of Senator Sibbeston's questions. You said there is an urgent need to act and that we have to act now. You talked about the map of Canada and the concentration of young children in the northern third of our country. You spoke of how the young people will soon be parents themselves and how this baby boom will grow even bigger.
Given those demographics, what would you say we should be doing in terms of focusing our efforts on a particular recommendation? What areas should we target to take into account the changing population?
Ms. Mount Pleasant-Jetté: There are three tiers of government in this country, though we do not always recognize that fact. There is the federal government, provincial government and, by far, there are clearly First Nations and Aboriginal community governments, Inuit hamlets.
The first thing I would advise you to do is make realistic and actionable recommendations. When you ask where you should target your efforts in terms of demographics, my sense is that a generation was lost with the residential school system. That generation lacks parenting skills and does not value education and might not be able to function. To a certain extent, we are moving out of that time. As you mentioned, the teenagers today are becoming parents and in most cases, these young people did not live a residential school experience. I think the last schools closed in 1976.
We have an opportunity, by engaging young people in this country — and I sound like a broken record — but we have to go back to get them into high schools. We can talk to young people when they are in a high school classrooms. We can deal with young mothers and fathers and help them to understand parenting and RESPs. We can help them to choose formal, strong education. However, if we cannot keep the parents of the babies in classrooms, then we will lose them.
My answer to you, if you are trying to address the demographic explosion, is that you have to deal with the teenagers, the youth in the high school age range. The demographic segment used to be between the ages of 15 and 24; that demographic focus has to change. I sat next to a young woman who had just come back from receiving an award. She is a broadcaster out of Winnipeg. She was very proud. I said, ``It is your job now. You have the degree, you have the profession and you have the award. You have to communicate to your peers that we need to keep our children in kindergarten and in school.'' She cannot blame the residual impact of the residential schools because she is 23 years of age or so. There may be some level of residual effects, but she herself was not in the residential school system.
Senator Raine: It is nice to have you here. I am enjoying your great experience on these matters.
We are trying to look at what we call a foundation of the education system that would be applicable across Canada, recognizing that there are great differences from coast to coast, especially in the North. If we are to build infrastructure, programs et cetera, we need to have a good foundation in terms of the management structure. You mentioned that as one of your key components; namely, organizational structure and managerial capacity.
Could you expand on that? Do you have insight into the different steps of that structure? This will probably be a good time for you to talk about your national association, as well. Could you expand on the organizational structure that, in a perfect world, you envision would be the best way to do it?
Ms. Mount Pleasant-Jetté: In a perfect world, you would be in B.C. and have a tripartite agreement. You would have the First Nations Education Steering Committee, FNESC. Parents would be engaged through parents clubs. I am not being facetious, and not because you are from British Columbia. It is a model.
However, I am sure most of you are aware that there is great variance, disparity and difference among First Nations communities. For example, the Metis people in Manitoba, the Mi'kmaq of the Atlantic and the Atikamekw and Montagnais in Quebec are all distinct. You cannot just take the model and superimpose it.
First, you need some kind of school board or school district structure. It needs to fall within a given set of norms. That is a big challenge. It might come from the province or from other native groups. It has to fall within the norms in which that district or school board operates. It needs to be arm's length from the political process, organizationally. It needs to be constituted as a corporation, existing as a formal body. It needs to have some measure of control over policies and programs and procedures that are run at the school level. It needs to have input into curriculum, into teacher hiring, into hours of teaching and the regular administrative structure.
It will have to be enhanced, however, with other special aspects, such as dealing with the issue of cultural values, language training and immersion schools. We have to come to some understanding of the balance that is needed between incorporating culture and language into a curriculum and teaching core curriculum. The word ``balance'' is critical.
We all know that in urban centres across Canada and the U.S., thousands and thousands of children go to school Saturday morning to learn their native language — Chinese, Italian, et cetera. There are after-school programs where they learn their language and practice their culture, which is a nice model. Aboriginal people cannot fit that model, but my sense is that we have to find a balance. If it means a Saturday morning cultural experience so that you can have enough time for math, writing and physical education during the week, then the school board will dictate that. If the school board is locally managed and elected, then people cannot argue as much.
As I intimated earlier, the costs of running these organizations will have to be supplemented by investment from the federal level and not at the local level.
Senator Raine: There is no school tax.
Ms. Mount Pleasant-Jetté: There is no revenue generation. The fact of the matter is there is too much needed. I have teachers today who are teaching physical science in grades 7, 8 and 9, in a province which shall remain unnamed, using textbooks printed in 1972. They do not have labs, equipment or Bunsen burners and microscopes, and their textbook is 38 years old. It is crazy, and this is Canada, folks.
[Translation]
Senator Brazeau: Dr. Mount Pleasant-Jetté, we are delighted to have you join us once again.
[English]
I have a comment before I get to my question. You mentioned in your introduction that 37 some years ago you were here talking about Aboriginal education and, again, in 2010, you are talking about education. You note that we are essentially at the same level today as we were all those years ago.
Well, 30 some years ago, I was just born. I have to respectfully disagree with you when I look at myself and my peers and other Aboriginal Peoples across this country. I know you have dedicated your life and energy towards education, and I think you should take credit for paving the way for other Aboriginal Peoples such as me. If we look at the statistics, back in 1972, there were no First Nations schools. Today, there are over 500 schools. In 1960, 30 Aboriginal students were enrolled in university. Today, we have over 30,000, at a rate whereby 4,000 are graduating on a yearly base. I think a lot of progress has been made, but there are still some challenges and we could all do better; that is why we are here.
I have a hypothesis about some of the challenges. Thirty or forty years ago, Aboriginal peoples talked about Indian control over Indian education and translating that into reality in practical terms. We have the federal government that funds for Aboriginal education on reserve in particular, and there are provincial transfers for Aboriginal kids who live off reserve as well. The funding goes from Indian Affairs to individual First Nations communities. Many leaders have said that they want to administer and have control over education. I do not want to defend the department, because I am highly critical of the department, but I can see the department stepping away because they do not want to step on toes because there are few performance indicators and the funding is not attached to any results.
Thirty years have passed since the first schools were created. There are some infrastructure issues, but we have to look at the current system and see how we can do a better job at ensuring that kids and, in particular, at the kindergarten to grade 12 level, finish high school. We have to see how we can get these kids on to post-secondary schools or get the trades and skills training so they can apply those skills to other jobs. Not all Aboriginal people want to go to university, and that is the nature of a lot of our population.
I do not want this to sound as a suggestive question, but do you think that band chiefs and councils, and I will be blunt, should be the ones administering education on reserve? I will have a short second question, depending on your answer.
Ms. Mount Pleasant-Jetté: I need to respond, if I can. I mentioned Clarence Chabot earlier. Some of you may have heard of him. In the late 1970s and early 1980s, we used to go into the Crown corporations to do an Aboriginal Awareness Day. We would sit in the car outside and say, who is doing the good cop bad cop part today? Who will tell the good news story? Who will tell the bad news story? Knowing that I had about 15 minutes to present an opening today and then respond to your questions, I made the choice of telling the bad news story, but I am fully in agreement with you that there is good news to tell.
Mr. Chair and members of the committee, this year's graduation brought the number to 76 Aboriginal graduates from the Faculty of Engineering at the University of Manitoba. It is doable. There is no question about it. I mentioned before that I transferred the responsibility and the work for the Native Access to Engineering Program website to Queen's University in Kingston. They are picking up the ball, so to speak. There are students arriving and gaining admission to Queen's University engineering, which is no small feat. Their cut-off lines for admission in engineering are extremely competitive. A couple of Aboriginal students have made that cut. That is engineering. I will tell you of a young man who did a bachelor's and a master's degree at Concordia in Mechanical Engineering. He completed his PhD last year. He is now on a PDF teaching. He is Mohawk from Oka, and he is an engineering professor at Queen's University.
Senator Dyck can tell you that I have been part of organizations over the last few years where we gather as Aboriginal academics. We had a meeting two years ago where we brought new professors from all Aboriginal nations, and we had 120 at the meeting in Winnipeg. Yes, there were 79 native people in university in 1979, and I believe the number is now 23,000. Yes, we are making progress. It is a good news story.
I take every opportunity when I am talking to people in the corporate sector or in the professions, to ask why they do not have Aboriginal students doing research right now. They reply there are not any. They have to find them. You are quite right, senator.
Regarding the last part of your question, can chiefs and council handle this? That is a tiny question that requires a huge answer. I do not want to take any more of the chair's time other than to say they should not be the only ones given that responsibility.
Senator Brazeau: If nothing changes, do you think the department that currently oversees education on reserve for Aboriginal populations should be more rigorous in having performance indicators attached to the funding to ensure maximum results, whatever those may be?
Ms. Mount Pleasant-Jetté: Are education dollars spent on education? That is what you are saying.
Senator Brazeau: Bingo.
Ms. Mount Pleasant-Jetté: Is post-secondary funding going to reserves where no one is in post-secondary education? And are those dollars monitored? I know the questions you are asking.
I have been accused of being an apologist; that is just fine, thank you. The Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development is one department in the treasury of this government. It does not matter what issue you raise in any federal government department. If you go to Veterans Affairs, Transport Canada, DFAIT, Fisheries and Oceans or any federal government department and raise an Aboriginal issue, they tell you to go to INAC.
Can INAC fix education? I am sure the committee has a large number of issues on its agenda. INAC has to be all things to all people — experts in everything. When I say ``apologist,'' in 15 years working with the Native Access to Engineering Programme and working with the department, I had opportunities to meet with public servants at INAC that are extraordinarily committed, intelligent people that are dedicated and work hard to do their jobs.
This is not an Indian Affairs problem; this is the Government of Canada's problem. The Government of Canada has a policy or vision that it wants to get out of the business of ``doing Indians.'' However, it still has a department, and it still has fiduciary responsibility and treaty obligations. That is a rather difficult situation.
The Government of Canada is the body responsible for the education of native children. The government delivers funding and services, however minute, through one of its departments. It delivers some services through PSC and HRDC. It is simply another office.
The Government of Canada has to take responsibility to do this correctly. If it means more money funnelled through Indian Affairs; if it means a bigger department; if it means re-engineering staffing in the education branch of Indian Affairs, so be it. Until such time as we see real, measurable change that First Nations have the capacity to manage and can get these boards up and running, they may need help.
As I said before, being an apologist for the department is not a popular thing, but I am not political or connected to native communities as much as I used to be. I can say from an academic standpoint that bands and council, teachers, school boards and children need help. The logical place to get help from this government in this country is through INAC. If it means a larger investment or distribution of funding through Treasury Board, so be it. It is not cheap. Senator Sibbeston said we cannot do all these things without resources.
As a last point, we also have to address the responsibility the department has as interlocutor so that it has responsibility for First Nations on reserve and for Metis and Inuit. However, it also has responsibility for First Nations people who have left their territories and are living in cities and urban communities.
That opens a big door, but I have to leave it there.
Senator Brazeau: You spoke earlier about three levels of government, responsibilities, fiduciary obligations, and the obligation of the federal government over Aboriginal education. We should talk about the department and their jurisdiction and obligations. What are First Nations' responsibilities in all of this?
Ms. Mount Pleasant-Jetté: Without question, First Nations have a responsibility to build a culture of learning.
As a broad-based, tribal group, we cared for our children. Our history is clear that we taught our children. We took responsibility for them and protected them. Women of the community kept the circle strong. Men of the community taught young men their traditional activities. We healed using medicines that we learned from our elders. We built shelters. I can list a whole range of things, from a technological point of view, that include maple syrup to longhouses and snowshoes to cradleboards. We taught our children. We had extraordinary ancestors who were leaders and who took their responsibilities seriously.
Local community leaders need to be home; they need to know who is in their community; they need to try to cope with the need to fight. People say that the Indian Act has produced divided communities where we fight each other — divide and conquer.
Our leaders and our chiefs need to take stock and look to our elders for teachings on how to care for our children. You do not send children off to Head Start, which is a good idea, and think that is the answer alone. You do not send children to a school and think they must be learning because someone is in the building. You cannot raise children and educate them well in an atmosphere where, as an adult, you do not value education. Teachers come to our conferences and say they are the most hated person in the community. Our parents do not value education. Our leaders do not value education.
My long answer is to say that our leaders have a responsibility to understand how our ancestors cared for our children.
Senator Patterson: Thank you very much, Dr. Mount Pleasant-Jetté.
My question concerns one element of the foundations for success that I did not hear you mention.
How important a factor in education success is the home and home support? Should we be paying attention to those issues as we look at the First Nations education system, instead of just focusing on structures and budgets, the foundations that you described?
Ms. Mount Pleasant-Jetté: I thank you for your question. I came here this evening unprepared, although, I knew that my interest was not to talk so much about technicalities, structures, systems, frameworks and the First Nation Students Success Program, et cetera, because I think you will hear a lot about that. Instead, my interest was to focus tonight, if I could — and I think we have — on the values in our communities.
I am not entirely certain how, from a legislative or procedural point of view, you can act to help our families become more functional. First, I do not believe that this is an Aboriginal issue either. I think this is a broad-brush issue, where the support from family, grandparents, siblings, neighbours, et cetera, in a physical sense as well as in an emotional way, goes a long way to bringing students to a successful point in their academic careers.
We all know stories of home life, where you were the kid on the street who had to do homework. No one else did, but you could not go out until your homework was done. At a certain point in time, parents take an interest and go to the schools and join the parents clubs.
I have made two references to that. In British Columbia, there is the First Nations Parents Club. For years now, they have been working hard to involve parents in the community schools, through all sorts of issues, activities and programs, where the parents and the children come to school and the parents see what their children are doing. There is no question that family and community support will help the students.
The young man who is the mechanical engineer, the PhD professor at Queen's, is speaking to high school students next week at a powwow at the University of Saskatchewan. His speech touches on that: How did I get to where I am? I have a PhD, and I got there because I had to do my homework every day. I could not go out and play. My parents would not let me hang around with undesirable kinds of people. It is a very personal, warm story, but it tells exactly the story that you have just raised. Family and the community are critical, and they are the reasons why many people succeed.
I want to leave you tonight with something that I have not read in your transcripts and something that I do not think you will hear about, because you will hear about organizations that already exist and that need to tell you their story. You will hear from department officials and other people about programs and how those programs that already exist need to be supported and strengthened. There is a huge void in this country, and that void is the capacity for Aboriginal education people to talk to each other.
We have what we refer to as RMOs, regional management organizations and in Quebec, the Conseil en Éducation des Premières Nations, the First Nations Education Council. The RMOs allow education people from the regions to get together on occasion throughout the year. Usually, in the context of INAC, those RMO representatives actually come to the same room and talk to each other. There are occasional meetings on education, but they are few and far between; and as you know, I am sure, with cutbacks and funding problems, people do not have the option to go to national meetings they used to go to. The Internet and the Web are there and could facilitate some exchange of information, but it is just not the same thing.
I call your attention to the annual report of the National Indian Education Association, NIEA, in the U.S. NIEA was founded in 1970 and it is sort of a model for what we need to do here.
The void in this country also has to do with how teachers understand First Nations. You know well that there is mobility amongst First Nations people, but there is mobility amongst teachers who work in First Nations communities. We have in Cree country in Quebec teachers who taught in Saskatchewan and in Prince Edward Island. They are from Sierra Leone and all over the world. The Cree School Board is always trying to hire teachers because they come in and then they move away.
The Canadian Aboriginal education association could be a national body. It should be arm's length from political structures. It should be constituted as a corporation, a not for profit, governed by a board of governors, the governors elected from various tribal groups across Canada. I use the word ``tribal'' to include more than just First Nations. I believe that the Canadian Aboriginal education association would be open to anyone who has an interest in or performs a service in the education of Aboriginal children, including academics, teachers, textbook publishers, et cetera.
When you go to an NIEA meeting, of which I have been to several, you walk into a facility and there are 6,000 native people. The scale here is important; it would not be that big in Canada. At the last meeting I went to, there were 6,000 native people, all of whom are totally focused on the education of their children. There are PhDs from universities, graduate and undergraduate students in teaching community tribal association people, parents and elders. They attend the meeting and spend two to four days learning the newest trends in education. They attend workshops on how to deal with bullying and gangs. It is the kind of conference that happens at the regional level in Canada.
I have been on tour. I have spoken at most of the regional education conferences. I have been to Membertou First Nations; I have been to B.C. and spoken to the First Nations Education Steering Committee. I have spoken in Alberta and at the Manitoba First Nations Education Resource Centre.
We do it in pockets. The one consistent finding from all of our 15 years in research is that there are extraordinary people doing extraordinary things all over the country, but they do not talk to each other. They do not illustrate their teaching methods; they do not share their curriculum. The Blood tribes, the Kainai people, are a good example. A secondary math teacher in one of the Mi'kmaq communities — I believe it is Ekasoni — had a class of 35 students in advanced placement math courses and physics. All of the 35 students received higher marks on math and physics than the rest of all the kids in the province. No one can tell me that our children are not intelligent, that they are not teachable and that they are not extremely gifted. We do have good examples.
Such an association, by the way, if you think about it, would create a win-win situation. If it does not take money away from First Nations communities, they would welcome it. If the provinces could play, it might help the Councils of Ministers of Education and all the ministers of education actually carry some manifestation of concrete support for Aboriginal education. All the provinces and territories could help make this association happen, and it is education related.
The federal government because it does not specifically delivering education, delivering an educational product but supporting a not-for-profit corporation, could easily invest in this and not overstep its constitutional bounds. Corporations that want those native employees and that want to communicate the future education needs should also be involved in this process. It is a win-win situation all around. It is something you could pick up as a challenge and start to make it happen. There is no reason for delay.
Thank you very much for this opportunity tonight. I realize I have taken your time.
The Chair: We do have time constraints, but in the same breath, we are appreciative of the fact that you took time to come and give evidence here as a witness at this hearing. I thank you for bringing your expertise to us, and I am certain that when the report is drafted that some of your recommendations will be reflected in the report. If you have anything else that you feel you would like to submit to the committee through the clerk, we would greatly appreciate it.
With that, colleagues, I would like to thank all of you.
(The committee adjourned.)