Proceedings of the Standing Senate Committee on
Social Affairs,
Science and Technology
Subcommittee on Post-Secondary education
Issue 6 - Evidence - Afternoon sitting
VANCOUVER, Tuesday, February 11, 1997
The Subcommittee on Post-Secondary education of the Standing Senate Committee on Social Affairs, Science and Technology met this day at 1:45 p.m. to continue its inquiry into the state of Post-Secondary education in Canada.
Senator M. Lorne Bonnell (Chairman) in the Chair.
[English]
The Chairman: Our next witnesses are from The Asia Pacific Management Cooperative Program at Capilano College, Dr. Lee and Dr. MacLeod.
Dr. Greg Lee, President, Capilano College: Mr. Chairman, I would like to thank the subcommittee for the opportunity to make a brief presentation on the subject of Post-Secondary education in Canada.
As a mid-sized college in British Columbia, we represent only a small percentage of the students and faculty that are engaged in this endeavour of preparing our citizens for the challenges that face our nation in the next century.
What we are doing as an institution is illustrative of the creative and dynamic activities that often take place in the college sector. This sector is often overlooked and often undervalued, overshadowed by the universities and their concerns. As you will see from the brief overview which I will present and by a more detailed description of one of our more distinctive programs given by my colleague, Dr. MacLeod, the college sector can and does provide a range of flexible and innovative services. By using this example, I will illustrate how federal and provincial cooperation can make some of these innovative and creative things happen. I will make a brief diversion relating to what Dr. Saywell stated this morning about the economic impact of marketing Canada's EDUCATIONal expertise.
Capilano College recently completed a review of its mission, values and strategic directions. Not surprisingly, the issue of continued adequate levels of public funding for its programs and services was identified as a concern which had to be addressed.
Without going into a detailed review of the plan, it is sufficient to recognize that one of the fundamental aspects of our strategic plan is to strive to rposte the dependence of the college on government grants and to do so by actively developing other sources of revenue. The college has also indicated that it wants to do that in the context of a publicly funded EDUCATIONal institution that continues to argue for government funding for its programs and services and further, as it develops those profit-making activities, puts those profits back into the support of its traditional programs and services.
This paradox, that is becoming less dependent on government grants while at the same time arguing for government funding, if not resolved can at least be recognized if we can convince government that its funding is an investment to achieve its ends in the partnership with the college, not only a grant. Our international activities are an example of how this can work.
We became aware, as did many of the colleges, of the need and the advantages of being involved in increased international activities in the late 1980s. At that time we made two separate proposals, one to a provincial ministry for innovative programs, which brought mid-level managers from ASEAN countries to the college and there they received a short course of studies in doing business with Canada.
At the same time, and probably more importantly, they were introduced and matched with counterparts in related business in British Columbia. A lumber company manager from the Philippines might be partnered with a manager from one of our forest companies. This program, the Can-ASEAN program, has expanded in the last few years to include Vietnam and China.
The second proposal was to the federal government, with provincial support, for the development of an international cooperative program in business. This latter program was truly different, in that the co-op placement was overseas, in a Southeast Asian country.I should stress that at the time the idea of an overseas co-op placement and the difference in how that placement works with the academic schedule was not easy to sell initially. To this day we still have difficulties with some parts of our co-op program being recognized as truly a co-op because of its timing.
Some of the perception arose because in some cases colleges are not seen to provide EDUCATION and training that are on a high enough level. Both of these programs did receive approval and began their operations. Very early, it was recognized that traditional methods of funding did not apply or could not apply to ventures such as this. The cost of doing business in Asia was far too expensive, particularly recruitment of Asian managers, job placements and maintaining faculty contact.
Fortunately, a third partner was there to help, the Canadian International Development Agency. The Can-ASEAN and the Pacific Management Co-op program objectives matched the initiatives of that organization and we received a CIDA grant to fund the activities and thus continue their development.
There were two levels of government and at least three ministries involved in putting together this combination of grants and partnerships that allowed this program to proceed. One of the messages I would like to leave is that often these creative and different initiatives cannot be funded by a particular ministry in any level of government. Partnerships that build on the desired outcome of several ministries that have different jurisdictions can work.
The second message is that the colleges are quite capable and may excel at providing specialized programs at the level such as you will find in the Asia Pacific Co-op program. The requirement that a college program have a baccalaureate degree as an entry requirement was quite unique and is quite unique in the system. The program could not succeed unless the students came equipped with the broad perspective and ability to learn and study that is achieved through the traditional university degree program.
Programs such as our Asia Pacific program are complementary to, not competition for, traditional university programs. The success of these programs also brought about the recognition of the value of international activities in other areas of the college. The content of the programs for Canadian students and the development of curricula can be made available for delivery overseas. This relates to the strategic directions of the college.
We view the international student market as an opportunity to make a profit, which we use to support our domestic programs. Building upon our strengths, especially the academic university transfer and business courses, we are using our contacts in Asia not only to recruit students to come to Canada to study, but also to develop and initiate programs in other countries from which we can profit. We have a business management program in Chengdu, China, in which the first year of the program is given in China and students come to this campus for the second year.
The seeds of this program began as a CIDA-funded project, but now it is operated on a fully cost-recoverable basis, with the fees paid for by the students. The international market for EDUCATIONal services is estimated at $28 billion. Canada was losing its market share. EDUCATIONal services are an export product in a knowledge-based economy. There is a good analysis of this put out by the Canadian Bureau for International EDUCATION, entitled "Where the students are."
The development of EDUCATIONal services as an export product has significant potential to generate revenue to put back into our domestic programs. What initiatives might be put in place to assist these types of ventures? Sometimes, regulations around federal initiatives specify that only private partnerships are to be considered. One could argue that you should not discourage partnerships between two or more public agencies, as well as the private sector. In the case of our programs, two or three different ministries and two or three different levels of government got involved and provided the impetus.
The college is currently unable to get the Public Service Commission of Canada to recognize the special nature of the Asia Pacific Co-op program. They have a schedule by which they pay for their co-op placements. Graduates or co-op placements from our program are treated as if they were students who were one year out of high school because it is a college program, whereas we know that our program requires a baccalaureate entry.
Last, and this is not a simple problem, but a current procedure that seems to have some difficulty is the question of student visas. We have experienced some difficulties, particularly in emerging economies, in having students accepted even when the funding was in place, because of visa requirements. I am not sure what the difficulties are here. I suspect a mechanism needs to be in place to allow students to get into Canada to study and at the same time protect our immigration policies, one which is perhaps enforceable at the end of their studies rather than at the beginning of their studies. I am not sure how to solve that, but it is a problem we have run into. The college sector is creative and innovative. It needs and deserves more recognition of the value that it provides to Canadians. The program on which Dr. MacLeod will give you more detail exemplifies the creativity that exists here.
Dr. Scott MacLeod, Program Manager, Asia Pacific Management Cooperative Program, Capilano College: Mr. Chairman, honourable senators, I would like to introduce my colleague, Bob Bagshaw, who is the founder of the APMCP program. I will introduce you to the program, what it is we do, where our innovations are, and talk about some of the partnerships we have established. That is very much what we are, a partnership. Then I will go on to some of the key themes that distinguish us from the norm in Post-Secondary education.
What is the APMCP, besides one of the toughest acronyms to remember in Canada? That is part of our marketing scheme. Once people remember "APMCP", they do not forget it and we know that they are on board. It is part of our design. The program is targeted at people who already have at least one degree; it is a graduate program. We bring in people from all across Canada. It is a two-year program, the first year on campus and the second year is a co-op work term in Asia. I will go over those elements.
When we select associates, we select them from across Canada and bring them into a very diversified curricula that you would not expect to find in a typical business or graduate school. Our focus is training people to succeed in the business world. Only 34 per cent of the total hours spent in the classrooms is spent on business courses. The rest of the time is spent in workshops that focus on computer skills, presentation skills, and languages. We teach five different Asian languages in our program -- we are the only college to teach Vietnamese in Vancouver -- and the context courses, which are the history, politics and economics of the region.
The next slide gives you an idea of the design of the program. There is a very diversified input, a very diversified curricula and then a very intensive work rate. We are lucky enough to be able to tell associates that if they want to come into our program they will have to work their brains out, and people accept that today. If you total up the number of hours in our program, it works out to about 80 hours a week. That seems to get them fairly well prepared for the Asian marketplace. If people survive that session, and generally they do, then we move on and place them in an Asian country.
This is a graph of last year's placements. You can see the range of countries that we place associates in, all the way from Indonesia, being a large market for us, Thailand, Malaysia, and South Africa this year. There are generally around 14 countries in the region that we place people in. We take this very tight group and disperse them across the continent.
We also work in a wide range of sectors. This is the type of employment that people work in. We take in a diverse group, give them a diverse curriculum and scatter them to the wind in a wide range of strategic sectors which are important for Canada.
Recently, we have conducted an outcome survey with all of our alumni, and a couple of points became clear. The first is that now, about half of our students have returned to Canada. The average length of stay in Asia is about 5.2 years. When they returned to Canada, 80 per cent of them said that their Asian experience was key to them getting the job in Canada they did, and they estimated their incomes were $28,000 higher because of the APMCP experience. They benefited from it directly themselves.
There is also a direct economic benefit to Canada as a whole. This is a graph of economic impact. The bottom three bars are just three of the variables we analyzed in our outcome studies: investment flows between Canada and Asia, exports to Asia, and Canadian business development. These are the types of activities the alumni are directly and significantly involved in. There is in total around $3 billion in total economic activity. The CIDA investment is around $2.5 million, which represents a very high return on investment.
Even if we were to assume that 10 per cent of that total economic activity would have been the only area that would have occurred because of our students, that is still a return on investment of 100 to one.
How did we manage to get this program up and running? We have a number of partners we rely on, the federal government, the CIDA grant of $214,000, which comes to about 12 per cent of our total program throughput. We also receive support from the federal government in many other ways. The Department of Foreign Affairs hires some of our students to work in the embassies; as well, Senator Perrault has also helped us out a great deal and has been a mentor for us in Ottawa.
The key element is that 71 per cent of the total program throughput, including salaries, comes from the private sector. That represents over $1 million a year that gets paid to our students by private-sector employers. The private sector also donates in the range of about $50,000 to $60,000 a year to our endowment fund. We are looking to diversify our income sources.
The next partner is the college. The college has a unique capacity to be flexible and we can get away with some things here that we could not get away with with UBC's senate. We can be very small and flexible, and that is an important ingredient of the partnership.
The last partner in the group, and the most important, is the associates who apply for our program. The applications-to-seats ratio ranges between four to one to seven to one. We have, in some years, roughly seven times as many applications as we have seats to offer young Canadians. They come from a wide range of provinces. The three-year average is approximately 20 per cent from Quebec, 31 per cent from Ontario and 37 per cent from B.C., and that is largely because our primary form of communication is word of mouth. Also, we get a fair bit of local press in Vancouver.
We have made a big push into the Prairies, and the Northwest Territories this year has been a breakthrough for us. Next year we are going to the Maritimes.
We believe we have a fairly good package to offer our associates, 90 per cent of whom stated they surpassed their individual goals on entering our program and 98 per cent of whom stated that they would recommend the program to a friend.
The EDUCATIONal background of the people who enter the program include those with Ph.D.s, a surprising number of MBAs, some with law degrees and quite a few with BAs trying to develop some hard skills and become more employable.
The outcome of those associates is the outcome of our program. What we are trying to create is a network of young Canadians stretched all across Asia. Our offices are the centre of a web of 250 young Canadians all around the world who are in very tight contact with each other. We know where all of our associates are located, how many children they have, what they are doing for work and where they are going to be going. That is our number one mission: to create a network of Canadians who will work together and help each other out in Asia because it is very competitive out there and Canadians need to support one another.
What are some of the themes of the model and some of our strategies? First, we believe that diversity is an extremely important element of our success, not just a buzzword to meet political needs. We bring in the widest range of associates possible, train them in the widest range of EDUCATIONal options that we can give them and send them out to the widest outcome of possibilities.
Our second theme is process learning. One of the things we have discovered, because our class size consists of only 32 students, is that we are very much in touch with the associates' experiences. My job as a manager is not to make sure that the curriculum is followed exactly, but to monitor this group's evolution and experiences as they go through a very intensive year. Working with the group to understand their stresses and strains really seems to help them succeed in Asia. Ninety-seven per cent of our associates complete their contract in cities like Phnom Penh and Semarang, Indonesia, very difficult settings. Part of it is that we have set up the learning process as something they can interpret.
The third main theme is that communication is everything. One of the things that is surprising about our program is that we devote almost 50 per cent of our resources to non-classroom communication. In other words, our communication with employers, recruitment, maintaining linkages with our alumni, communicating with the outside world and with our partners is as important as what goes on in the classroom.
The fourth major theme is that small is beautiful. One of the difficulties for our program is that our success, in some ways, is killing us. We cannot really grow, because part of our success is that group of 32 people that we work with in a very intensive manner. That number allows us to monitor and follow their progression through the system. We can be both flexible and specialized. We are grappling presently with the issue of how to grow.
The fifth theme is that very much built into our design is that we change. We rewrite our curriculum every year. You can imagine how arduous that would be at a major university. We are very much a collegial model. We work together to redesign and fine-tune our curriculum, building change into what we are all about. As a result of our program, we have generated a network of young Canadians throughout Asia. Every morning when I turn on my computer, I have 10 e-mails from 11 cities across Asia, from alumni spread throughout the region, informing us and working with this year's students. We have too many applications for the number of seats in our program. It is very frustrating. We have to turn down a number of well-trained and qualified young Canadians because we do not have the resources to deal with it.
In the last four years, we have placed 100 per cent of the eligible associates in our program. We deal on an ongoing basis with 140 companies. We have found that the length of stay in the field has been moving out. The current stay is about 5.2 years in the field. That tells us that people are thriving in Asia. The training and network they receive has been working for them. What we are working on presently is that when our associates return to Canada, we want to inform the Canadian corporate community of the resources they have, both in the field, with these young ex-pats on the ground, and with people who are coming back from Asia who may have worked six or seven years in an Asian country.
The final result of our work and the work of our associates in the field is that we are trying to contemplate how to grow and leverage the skills we have developed to widen our impact on Canada as a whole. We are looking at developing a Latin American program based on the same model as the Asian Pacific program, bringing in more students from Asia. We have a number of plans.
Senator Carney: I want to thank you for a very exciting presentation. Those of us on the West Coast have an opportunity to know more about what you have been doing and have had an opportunity to meet your associates in the field in Indonesia, Thailand and in other areas as we travel. I am delighted that through our Senate hearings we will have an opportunity to give more national exposure to this national program. Too often, people think that if it is in B.C., it is only for British Columbians. They forget how much we are willing to contribute to the rest of the country, and do.
I am also pleased that you have such a good advocate in Senator Perrault, someone who I know has been very persistent in his support of your program.
I wish to zero in on the employment opportunities for your graduates in view of the fact that our Foreign Affairs Committee has learned that the Canadian business community is considered to be a little slow in picking up opportunities in Asia. You are certainly getting the applicants. You have a superb program. They are doing their co-op EDUCATION internship in the field. But how successful are they in bringing that expertise back to the Canadian corporate or private sector?
I have had some concerns about the inability of the Canadian corporate sector to use this pool of talent to promote our Canadian interests here and abroad. Why is that such a tough nut to crack?
Mr. MacLeod: This is the classic issue we have been dealing with for some time. It has two stages to it. The first stage is that it is surprisingly difficult to get Canadian companies to employ our associates in the co-op term. A lot of our associates work for indigenous companies in Asia. That is all right, because if they work for four years with a large Thai corporation they will learn Thai business culture and be more effective.
The second stage is that when individuals returned to Canada about four or five years ago, we had many meetings on how to address this. It now seems that because of word of mouth about the program, the labelling of individuals who have done this program, we had been having a much higher level of success. There are not very many companies that do business with Asia in Canada.
This year is our 10th anniversary, and it is also Canada's Year of Asia Pacific. We have had initiatives in six Canadian cities to publicize the skills of these young individuals. We will take a group of six alumni who have worked in Bangkok and Jakarta, and who know what it means to be a Canadian and be successful in Asia, across Canada to other young Canadians. By doing that, we will inform both young Canadians and the Canadian corporate community about the program and about the wisdom of hiring these people who have a tremendous skill set. It is a very slow road, but it is a focus of ours.
Senator Carney: Is your difficulty in placing associates in Asia in Canadian companies linked to the fact that we have very little visibility in Asia and that there are very few Canadian companies actually operating in Asia?
Mr. MacLeod: To begin with, the reason we have had a history of difficulty in placing with Canadian companies is that we had very few resources. We need to get people working in Asia. Hence, travelling through central Canada, among other places, and asking people to pay for our associates to live in Beijing for a year was not very productive. On the other hand, if we went to China and told a representative of a Chinese company or a Malay company about our young Canadians from the best universities in Canada who have now come through our program, it was much easier finding placements with Asian companies, right from the beginning.
That is very much starting to drop off. The bell-wether is that the Canadian banks, the most conservative ones, are not sure how they are going to deal with Asia. They have come on quite strong in the last few years.
Senator Carney: Your brief states:
The international market for student EDUCATIONal services is estimated at 28 billion dollars and Canada is losing market share.
Do you mean that the market for foreign students trained in Canada, Australia and the U.S. is $28 billion a year? How did you get to that rather phenomenal figure?
Mr. Lee: I took that figure directly out of the report of Canadian Bureau for International EDUCATION entitled "Where the students are," published in January of this year.
Senator Carney: We might want to get that report, Mr. Chairman. I would like to commend you for your efforts in this field at a time where there is high youth unemployment and demand for young people with new skills. Your program had made a remarkable effort to offer to Canadians new opportunities to broaden their own skills and to compete in the global economy, which, as Dr. Saywell pointed out, is the true challenge today, and to make a contribution to their country. I wish you success.
Mr. MacLeod: If I were to convey one message today about the younger generation, it is that they have a lot to offer. This group was born in the late 1960s, early 1970s, and they are incredibly entrepreneurial. Downsizing has been the reality through most of their lives. They do not expect anything from anybody. They are well trained by Canada and they are a major asset. It is very positive to be working with those people and very positive for Canada.
Senator Forest: I note from your information that since 1987 the program has placed 240 associates. Has that averaged out over the years or are the numbers of associates growing with each year? How many can you handle?
Mr. MacLeod: We started out with an enrolment of 25. However, because of various budget constraints we had to go to 32, which is the maximum number we can have with this model. The group element starts to lose its corporate identity after that. That is an average. If this year's class were included, it would be 280.
Senator Forest: I would also like to commend you for the program. I was pleased to learn that to be accepted into your program one must have a baccalaureate. A well-rounded background is one of the best assets that can be brought to this type of program.
Mr. MacLeod: The ability to learn is the key.
The Chairman: I understand that you will be going to Halifax later in the year. However, I did not hear you mention the birthplace of the nation, Prince Edward Island. As you might know, many years ago when the birthplace of the nation came to be, we all came from London, England, thousands of miles away. In the first 50 years, Canada traded with Europe. We never thought of trading across the Pacific Ocean. British Columbia traded with the fur traders from the Northwest Territories. A couple of New Brunswickers were sent out to British Columbia, one fellow by the name of Nicholson, who became the Lieutenant Governor, and another fellow called Wacky Bennett, who became Premier of British Columbia. British Columbia began to develop economically. Today, anything west of the Rocky Mountains is growing so fast, especially with the Pacific Rim trade countries.
I would think there is a potential for a similar type of program with the Spaniards in South America and the Pan-American countries, especially on the East Coast of Canada. In the next 10 years, there will be terrific growth in South America and in the Pan-American countries.
There is potential to develop a program with South American countries similar to your current program at Capilano College which trains young people to go to Pacific Rim countries. What is your viewpoint?
Mr. MacLeod: We completely agree. Currently, we have a proposal sitting with our CIDA desk officer for a Latin American model of our Asian program. We have also made a proposal to the provincial ministry, which has been approved in principle, but there is a lack of money. Those are the steps we have to go through.
Perhaps I can answer your question in two ways. We completely agree that Latin America is a place that we should begin now to send people. It will be too late in five years; we will be behind the eight ball. Secondly, we also agree that there could be programs similar to ours in other areas of Canada. We have worked hard with colleges in Ontario to try to establish a program like ours. It did not work, but we did try to develop it. The learning curve is very steep on a program like this.
The Chairman: There is a little place in Prince Edward Island called Holland College -- I do not know if you know it. There is a great potential there to work with them. They are trying to grow and develop, and they would be pleased to get background information from Capilano College on how you work with the Asian group. And perhaps instead of teaching Chinese and Japanese, they could teach Spanish. I will be mentioning you people and your program to them. There was a change of government there a month ago, however, so I am not sure how well they would work with me.
Senator Carney: They will work with Senator Andreychuk and me.
The Chairman: That would be fine, as long as they work with someone. We wish to make the economy of Prince Edward Island grow. Small is beautiful, but we will be one of the fastest growing economies in the world if we can get that program going. We have the best potatoes, the best oysters and the best lobsters in the world.
Senator Perrault: I am personally enthusiastic about this program. It is an idea whose time has come and should be applied on a much larger basis across the country. Bob Bagshaw, who was involved in the concept years ago, deserves the thanks of all of us. There is such a good cast of people associated with this program.
We have been known to disagree on certain policy matters, Senator Carney and myself, but there is no partisan difference here. Senator Carney did a great deal of promotion during the time she was in cabinet. This is a good program.
Mr. Chairman, we are very pleased to have you on the West Coast. You told us something about the history of Nova Scotia. Some of my ancestors were Acadians and were pleased to welcome those people to the new shores from Scotland.
This idea is a happy marriage between the private sector and government. It seems to me that we need this kind of blend at this time. I have met a number of young people in this program, not only this year's group but ones before that, and the enthusiasm for the program has to be seen to be believed. I suspect that it is fiercely competitive. They are very tough courses. The best possible ambassadors that we can send abroad are people who have gone through the fire of trying to learn one of those exotic Pacific Rim languages. Of course, they are in this work to carve careers for themselves, but they are also helping the country. They want to help this country and they have a sense of I hope that we can expand the program.
You talk in terms of developing the Latin American potential, and that is a good thing. Do you anticipate anything beyond that? Do you have another step beyond enhancing our presence in South America and South American markets? Would Europe be on the list at any time, or is that a different type of assignment?
Mr. Lee: I am not going to let them even think about another market until they get this one going. It is tough enough keeping one of them running. It is fair to say that we have not thought beyond Latin America at this point.
The Chairman: Thank you very much for your excellent presentation and your video. We will be in touch with you from time to time.
Our next witnesses are already here, so we will proceed on to the next group. Thank you very much for the excellent lunch and the wonderful tour of the building. Your hospitality is very much appreciated. As an easterner, I am very proud and pleased to come over the mountains to see how British Columbia does things.
Mr. MacLeod: Before we depart, Mr. Chairman, in answer to your question of this morning, Senator Lavoie-Roux, Sir Frederick Seymour was Governor of British Columbia from 1864 to 1869, but that was the mainland only.
Senator Perrault: We had a very colourful politician in Canadian history called Amor de Cosmos. His name was John Smith, but he did not think it was elegant enough. He came from your part of the world, senator. He changed his name to Amor de Cosmos -- "lover of the world." He was the one who carved out this province.
Senator Carney: Governor Seymour was not impressed by British Columbia. He said, at one point, that they were either all in jail or they should be.
Mr. Lee: But he did get a mountain and a river named after him, despite that.
The Chairman: Thank you very much.
We now have with us Dr. Vivian Ayoungman of the Treaty 7 Tribal Council, Marie Smallface-Marule, President of Red Crow Community College, and Don Fiddler, Executive Director of the En'owkin Centre.
Dr. Vivian Ayoungman, Director of EDUCATION, Treaty 7 Tribal Council, Calgary, Alberta: Mr. Chairman, honourable senators. I will be speaking to the document that has already been circulated to you. Both Marie Smallface-Marule and Don Fiddler will add any points I may miss.
I will briefly address some of the issues that we have spoken about and written about in other documents that have been forwarded to other political leaders and bureaucrats. I have a copy of them, if anyone wants to see it.
What we are talking about this afternoon is the Post-Secondary education of the First Nations people, more specifically in Southern Alberta because that is where I come from, but representative of some of the issues that face other institutions, including here in British Columbia. Before we get into Post-Secondary education, it might be worthwhile to talk about the history of EDUCATION in general for First Nations people.
It is quite simple. From our perspective, we say that there has not been any EDUCATION. What we have received, at best, is what we would refer to as counterfeits of EDUCATION, either training or indoctrination. One of my colleagues says that indoctrination may in fact be too gentle a word for what has been done to us. The word "indoctrination" connotes socialization into a shared societal norm. The purpose of the indoctrination we have received is brainwashing. It is the imposition of an alien norm that destroys a pre-existing one.
My colleague says that perhaps the better term to use is genocide. Some of the most common institutions of genocide of North American aboriginal peoples remain right out in the open. These my colleagues would refer to as schools. The history of the EDUCATIONal ideological attack on First Nations is as pretty as the history of what has happened to our land and our possessions. The only encouraging thing about all of this is that we have survived the anticipated results.
Different documents have been written in relation to this. Citizens Plus, back in the 1960s; Wahbung: Our Tomorrows; and Indian Control of Indian EDUCATION. All of these give evidence of our enduring determination to exist as First Nations peoples. If the EDUCATION we have received has been the counterfeit of real EDUCATION, the control that we have been accorded has been the counterfeit of real control. No nation, no people, no community is in control when their funding levels are set by outsiders; when their financial decisions are made by someone else; when funding caps are imposed upon them unilaterally by an external political system; when the depth and breadth of the form of their EDUCATION programs are determined by outside forces; and when the very nature of their intellective activity is required to conform to someone else's notions of suitability.
With regard to the documents that we have already circulated, "A Post-Secondary Review" and a position paper on Post-secondary programs, when we have forwarded them to the bureaucrats in Indian Affairs, we have been told that we cannot talk about those things. How are people to grow unless they have the opportunity to reflect on the very issues that nag at them day after day? Important as those issues are at the primary and secondary EDUCATION levels, they are carried over and greatly magnified in the post-secondary EDUCATION to which we have been subjected.
Your mandate here is specifically to look at funding arrangements, program reorganization, corporate agenda setting, around-the-world development of programs, expansion into Latin America. All of these may apply to mainstream institutions and colleges, but I am hoping that you will give as much consideration and spend as much time looking in our backyard in Canada to see what we can do also to improve that picture and situation. Our agenda is to make clear to you that whatever it is that mainstream institutions have been doing, they have not been doing it with reference to our communities, our needs or our aspirations.
Kempton, in writing about women's issues, stated that it is difficult to fight an enemy with outposts in your own head. Even where advances have been made in accessibility of aboriginal peoples to mainstream post-secondary institutions, the EDUCATIONal/ideological agenda that has been imposed upon us can most readily be characterized as creating and maintaining those outposts within our own people.
In many First Nations, aboriginal and Inuit communities across Canada, we are dubious about the kind of EDUCATIONal tinkering that is typically offered in the place of real reform. We are taking steps in directions we believe we must move, as difficult and as treacherous as those steps might be. We believe that this activity on our part, for our agenda, has implications for the activities on your part and for your agenda. We are happy to have the opportunity to talk about our issues and our different positions.
Number one, Canada must live up to its obligations. With respect to those obligations, a treaty exists between the First Nations, Canada and the British Crown; Canada has an obligation under international law and under the dictates of simple morality to provide for the EDUCATION of our peoples. This obligation is not constrained by age, location, program duration, financial resources or any of the other bureaucratic limits that have been imposed unilaterally.
For those of our nations for which the existence of a treaty is less apparent, Canada still has obligations under international law and under the dictates of simple morality. We call your attention, and I am sure you are aware, to the Covenant on Civil and Political Rights of 1966, the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights of 1948, the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights of 1976, the Declaration on the Rights of Persons Belonging to National or Ethnic, Religious and Linguistic Minorities of 1992, the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child of 1989, and the UN Draft Declaration of Principles for Indigenous Rights of 1995, where the formal and informal obligations Canada has to Treaty First Nations are extended to other aboriginal people in this country.
Our second position is that Canada must stop advancing economic non-sequiturs. Throughout the history of the drive to aboriginal control of aboriginal EDUCATION, we have been fobbed off with the claim that the reforms we desire are just too expensive or cannot be committed to over multi-year intervals. Even in the boom periods, we received that response to many of our initiatives. We know that capital ostensibly earmarked for aboriginal EDUCATION has made its way into the EDUCATIONal systems of mainstream society; that non-aboriginal primary, secondary and Post-Secondary educational institutions have benefited from this, even as they pursue goals inconsistent with the aims and aspirations of First Nations people, Inuit people and other aboriginal peoples.
Money has been expended on behalf of us, but someone else has always expended those dollars. The claim that there is not enough money simply does not wash. The situation affirms that Canada is in default of its financial obligations to First Nations. While there are funds available to mainstream EDUCATION systems, institutions and programs, equivalent funds are denied to First Nations people. We believe that it is an issue of proper application of funds, not a shortage of funds. The costs of undoing what has been done to us will probably be less than the profiteering from our exploitation.
Thirdly, when we talk about our EDUCATION, we will finish what we start. There is no statute of limitations on reform from within. It is our opinion that after more than 100 years of ignoring its obligations, Canada and its post-secondary institutions are no longer in a moral position to affirm that they will eventually do the right thing.
In Alberta, British Columbia and Manitoba, the First Nations people have taken steps towards the development of post- secondary strategies that will address our issues. We are circulating in draft form the terms of reference, the operational procedures, and the organizational principles for a body to accredit EDUCATIONal programs and institutions. We recognize that accreditation and certification are primarily political processes that, in Canada, have been used to deny us credibility and intellectual dignity. This is no longer acceptable and we move to assert our own internal notions of EDUCATIONal suitability.
We are cooperating, in an ever-expanding way, with the creation of an electronic institute without walls, an indigenous world "multiversity." Because of deeply-set prejudices concerning what aboriginal peoples are and are not capable of achieving, this work has not been progressing as it could. Nevertheless, what is only a dull twinkle in the eyes of some is becoming a reality for us. There has been an attempt to expropriate from us this concept in recent months by conventional mainstream bureaucracies. Our notions of a First Nations institute without walls was not taken seriously; it was not even responded to by the federal government. Minister Irwin said that the Liberals had made plans in Red Book for a "First Nations Electronic EDUCATION Institute". However, our input has not been sought as to our ideas and how we might implement our concept of this.
The deeply set prejudices of which we just spoke are prejudices that exist not only within the non-aboriginal society, but also, because of the colonial nature of our existence within Canadian society, crop up all too often in our own societies.Whatever EDUCATIONal system we build, we want it the way it will be "because it is the right way to do it," not because we have failed to recognize the limitations of the frame of reference we have adopted by default.
To this end, to the best of our abilities, we have pursued a tactic of critical analysis in all of our inquiries and with all of our peoples, as reflected in the materials we have produced and in the directions we have taken. These things and more we will do for ourselves.
The time has passed, if ever it were appropriate, when "tokenism" is sufficient; when aboriginal educators are limited to following the directives of non-aboriginal educators and bureaucrats; or when we are satisfied with suggesting and advising others who are free to make decisions which ignore our input.
Canada must be in for the long haul. Apart from the insistence on the part of non-aboriginal bureaucrats to supervise our work, a particularly invidious reaction that we have encountered in pursuing our post-secondary deliberations is the do-it-yesterday attitude. The federal government, as well as trying to insinuate a neoconservative equity agenda in a proposed nation-wide review of First Nations Post-Secondary education programs, repeatedly attempts to enforce time lines which will make it impossible for us to treat the subject with the care it demands.
In these documents, we have been talking about how we need to do a very comprehensive review of the state of our First Nations post-secondary EDUCATION. The federal government is now undertaking to do just that, but with a very limited agenda.
Nothing we have undertaken and nothing we contemplate undertaking in the near future can be predicated on declaring a definitive moment when the activity will be completed. Change, when it comes, will be neither precipitous nor discontinuous for First Nations and post-secondary institutions currently in existence. Pragmatically, this means that Canada must accept that the needs that currently exist must be addressed at the same time work is going forward in new directions. Our post-secondary and adult vocational EDUCATION programs are not even formally recognized by the federal government and they receive nothing in the way of core funding. Underfunding and year-to-year, project-to-project funding for these programs must stop, and stable funding must be put in place. Obsolete equipment, archaic facilities, understaffing and inadequate academic resourcing must be put right. Student counselling and support services, transportation, living subsidies, daycare and similar programs, whether students attend mainstream Canadian or First Nation institutions, must be secured.
Canada, heal thyself. The discrimination, oppression and neglect of First Nations peoples of this continent are reflected as much in the EDUCATION systems as they are in race relations, employment rates and treaty negotiations. It appears that even in this inquiry the First Nations situation has been treated as an afterthought, perhaps tokenly. The solution required must be radical. Listen to the proposed solutions of First Nations and facilitate their means of implementation.
The often-mentioned unwillingness of the Canadian public to accept an increment in their financial responsibility to First Nations, Inuit and aboriginal groups bespeaks a malignant ignorance resident within that public. It seems you have the task of informing mainstream society members what, as members of a world community, their treaty obligations and responsibilities are to us, as well as imparting to them the fact that the status quo does not only drain enormous amounts of money but prevents the generation of even more revenue from postated and gainfully employed First Nations people.
In conclusion, it is a cliché to say that the world is changing. It is our determination that we do not exchange our position as alienated non-entities for positions as alienated cogs in someone else's machine. Our people universally feel that EDUCATION is essential for avoiding this pitfall. We are prepared to continue the work we have already begun within the terms of reference sketched out here. Until we reach precisely where we are going, actions deemed essential to bring about substantive changes and improvements include:
1. Ongoing and stable funding for First Nations post-secondary institutions;
2. Ongoing and stable funding for First Nations adult/vocational students and programs;
3. The support for the aboriginal community-based development of an electronic post-secondary institute without walls;
4. The support for an aboriginal community-based investigation of post-secondary EDUCATIONal theory and practice;
5. Uncapping of the federal Post-Secondary Student Support Program;
6. Adequate funding for tutoring, transportation, daycare, practica, and material and supplies for adult and post-secondary students in academic and/or vocational programs;
7. Provision for curriculum development in adult EDUCATION, special EDUCATION, language, and First Nations/aboriginal studies, culture and performing arts;
8. Capital infusion for facilities, equipment, library and laboratory services, and maintenance of sites, facilities and equipment for post-secondary adult programs;
9. Financial support to extend and deepen the initiative already under way in Alberta, British Columbia and Manitoba; and
10. Support for the development of indigenous EDUCATION programs reflective of community values and concerns, including curriculum, pedagogy and accreditation.
The above list is not a lot to ask, considering that this was no more than what was promised when our mutual agreements were originally made, with the addition of what now has become necessary to undo through failure to treat those agreements with respect.
This hearing is about examining the deplorable state of Post-Secondary education in Canada. And since we have received inequitable treatment and resourcing for our programming, we need not explain further what the situation must be like for our First Nations institutions and students.
Senator Andreychuk: Thank you for your paper. You have touched on the issues that concern you, in particular EDUCATION. You seem to be saying what all Canadians who have thought about our aboriginal relationships have thought, and that is that the status quo cannot continue. In some way we have to address this issue, and I want to come back to that. I am pleased that you have added your comments to that.
In your brief, you state on page 8, under "Position 5: Canada, Heal Thyself:"
It appears that even in this inquiry, the First Nations situation has been treated as an afterthought, and tokenly.
I will leave you to decide whether it is token or not when we finish. Let me tell you the history.
We felt that there was some need for a study. Our work often consists of doing studies and bringing some awareness and hopefully thoughtful research to a topic. Led by Senator Bonnell and people around this table, Senator Forest had an excellent speech supporting the need, we immediately bumped up against the fact that EDUCATION is a provincial matter. When we tried to address that there is a need to study this, and a need to study it at the federal level, we very quickly identified aboriginal EDUCATION. It was not an afterthought. It was the first thing we put on the table that we all agreed to that was a national perspective that needed study. We did not have as easy a task with the other areas we identified, perhaps with the exception of research and development.
I will leave you to assess us later, but I can assure you that we do see the federal perspective on your needs.
I am interested in two things, for clarification purposes. You pointed out that you have embarked on a study with British Columbia, Alberta, and Manitoba. I want to know why only three provinces, rather than the 10 provinces and the territories, taking into account that Quebec is perhaps in a unique situation because of the language difference? I would like you to elaborate on that.
There has been an exhaustive study through the royal commission and one that I am going through page by page and section by section and it says a lot to Canadians and a lot about how we must re-address this issue immediately, from land entitlement to every aspect.
You have proposed 10 recommendations. Have you looked to see if your recommendations are in line with the royal commission's recommendations on EDUCATION, which would be very helpful to us?
Do you believe that there needs to be a thoughtful conference with all educators in Canada in Post-Secondary education who are working in aboriginal EDUCATION to try to form a consensus?
One of the things we find when we deal with educators is that they all seem very unique. This is true not only in the non-aboriginal field, but also internationally. It would be interesting to see if you share common views on aboriginal Post-Secondary education across Canada or whether the same uniqueness is necessary in your sector.
Ms Ayoungman: Let me speak to the first issue, and then my colleagues will address the others, because I know they have strong feelings about the accreditation issue.
I want to thank the committee for inviting us to present. We heard about this and we knew we would not get an invitation, so we took the initiative. We wrote and were invited and I was pleasantly surprised when we received an immediate reaction.
On the issue of the study and the accreditation that we speak about, a lot of our First Nations institutions have been thinking about this for a long time. When you stop to think about it, is it not ludicrous for someone to accredit an aboriginal or First Nations language when they do not know anything about that language? I am talking about mainstream accreditation. When you talk about our aboriginal First Nations studies, our perspectives and our world views, who best to look at the credentials and the accrediting of such?
We had to be proactive in looking at our own academic development, our own course work and our own languages. The experts in those areas are in the best position to accredit those.
We initiated the discussions. In the Treaty 7 area, which includes all the First Nations in the southern Alberta area, we talked about it and sent an invitation to the institutions which we knew had First Nations secondary programs, the B.C. institutions, Saskatchewan and Manitoba. People came from all over and we held discussions.
The discussions continued, and at first we called what was beginning to evolve from that process the "Western First Nations Accreditation Board." But then we decided that if we called it "Western," it was too restrictive. It was open to any group that wished to join us in this process. There are all kinds of opportunities for any First Nations group from across the country to join us in this work we are doing.
At the moment, the institutions that are actively involved in the discussions are mostly from B.C., Alberta, and Manitoba. The Saskatchewan people are observing.
Mr. Fiddler may have some points to add.
Mr. D. Fiddler, Executive Director, En'owkin Centre, Penticton, British Columbia: Mr. Chairman, thank you for the invitation. It is a pleasure to be here.
The issues we are facing in accreditation are serious issues, issues essentially about who is in the best position to determine whether or not whatever we do EDUCATIONally is valid. It is a political process that has been undertaken through the years by whoever controls the exclusive club, post-secondary EDUCATION, no matter where it is in North America.
Accreditation is used as a device to deny access into this exclusive group by colleges, by governments, and by program directors. For too long, what has been happening in North America is that we have had to go to other people to ask for their validation of these programs, when we are the experts best able to deliver.
What has happened in Canada in the EDUCATIONal industry is that aboriginal EDUCATION has become a growth industry. As governments have reacted to the various briefs that we presented over the years, mainstream universities and colleges react to it. They do not react to it out of a commitment to the notion of developing a comprehensive EDUCATIONal program that is important to our people; they react to it because there is funding available and their bureaucracies grow.
Over the years, we aboriginal peoples have found ourselves in the position of having to buy back the information about ourselves, through anthropology, sociology and psychology programs extant in the universities and colleges. When we started to recognize the things we had to offer, we realized that we had the expertise in our own communities. When we started to offer those programs, we oftentimes were told that what we were doing was not valid. When we asked why it was not valid, they would say that the local community college has not given its permission; that a group of two or three university professors have not got together said that it is valid.
What we are saying, when we talk about accreditation of those issues, is that we have the expertise. In our communities throughout North America, we have many scholars who have already been postated in mainstream universities and have recognized that if we wish to pursue aboriginal EDUCATION we need to take radical alternatives. We are not talking about parallel EDUCATION. We are talking about the freedom to develop EDUCATION that is particular to our own people and whose direction may differ very widely from what is commonly called EDUCATION.
We want that freedom. And we can only have that freedom when we, as an aboriginal community, as aboriginal Elders, as speakers of aboriginal languages, as aboriginal community members, come together to validate those things that we are doing, independently of other political groups. We have that ability to do, but we require the funding to be able to do it. There are situations at present where our people cannot get language training at our own institutions because the courses have not been validated by a community college somewhere and given transfer credits, and the Department of Indian Affairs funding is based upon attending an accredited facility.
The validation of our culture and languages by outside sources is something that we must not put up with any longer, and this is what this paper addresses. Until we have control and direction of our EDUCATION, we will not have an EDUCATIONal system that will promote our values. It will always be somebody else's.
Ms. Marie Smallface-Marule, President, Red Crow Community College, Kamai Nation, Stand Off, Alberta: Mr. Chairman, there are two matters I want to emphasize. They have been touched on by Dr. Ayoungman. The first is the validity of our First Nations institutions.
Red Crow Community College was established by the First Nations tribal government. We are not a private institution; we are a public institution of our First Nations.
Nowhere is there recognition for such an institution. The province provides for accreditation of private institutions and public institutions. There is nothing in the provisions for recognizing First Nations institutions in Alberta. There has been progress in British Columbia, where the province has recognized First Nations institutions that are publicly owned by First Nations.
We would like a federal provision to be developed, similar to the one that exists in the United States. There is federal legislation in the United States that recognizes tribally controlled colleges. They have developed the system federally for resourcing those tribally controlled colleges in the United States, of which there are 30 at this time, two of which are degree-granting institutions. The other ones are two-year institutions, similar to community colleges.
We have no equivalent provision in Canada. We have no resourcing for First Nations colleges. We are robbing Peter to pay Paul.
At Red Crow Community College, we administer and manage the Blood Tribe Post-Secondary Student Support Program, where $5 million comes into our hands and then immediately leaves our community through the students who are going to school at the University of Lethbridge, Lethbridge Community College, the University of Calgary, and Mount Royal College. That training allowance money, the family allowance money or child tax credit money, and any other money they get their hands on, remains in the communities which are home to the EDUCATIONal institutions the students from our community attend. Those moneys do not stay in our community; they do generate the employment or development of the people in our community. Not once is that money spent in our community, and that is an incredible drain.
Yet, that money does not meet the demand in our community for EDUCATION. Our community is the largest in land size in Canada and has the third-largest aboriginal population in Canada. There are now 8,000 members in our community. Unlike a lot of First Nations communities, where they are being forced out of the community, we are retaining our people. Less than 15 per cent of our population is leaving our community. However, we have 60 per cent unemployment, in terms of full-time, gainful employment.
Any other community would experience incredible disruption and upheaval. It is through retention of our language, our culture and our own social systems that we have not had chaos within our community. However, we will begin to experience that because the younger generation is insufficiently socialized in their own culture and language. These young people are dropping out of school because the EDUCATION they are receiving alienates and marginalizes them, not only from their own community, but also from the mainstream community. Their disruption, their frustration and their anger is being directed into the communities around our reserve.
This worries me, because already 75 per cent of the people in the provincial jails of Alberta are aboriginal people. Look at the waste of money. Why are they there? The primary reason they are there is that they cannot afford to pay the fines that are levied against them. Poverty is what is affecting it.
With all the federal and provincial changes taking place in terms of services and the so-called social safety net disappearing, the impact will be incredible if we cannot get our young people postated; not just trained, not just indoctrinated, but postated and with a strong sense of their own value as First Nations people. That is the only way we are going to avoid the kind of situation that will crop up in the future.
In Alberta, the educators say that before long more than 25 per cent of the students in the schools will be aboriginal people. That is a reality. They are not staying in these schools. We have almost 3,000 school-aged students on the Blood Reserve, of which 1,200 are going into our own schools. We have two elementary schools, a middle school, and a high school. For 800 of our youth, we are paying tuition for them to go to provincial schools in Fort Macleod, Cardston and Lethbridge. There are a number of students whose parents are living off reserve for whom we do not pay because the tax system covers their tuition and EDUCATION.
My research indicates that 50 per cent of youth between the ages of 17 and 21 who have dropped out of school were not employed and were not trained to do anything. Red Crow College has tried to attract that group of young people to our college in order to have them complete their EDUCATION. They would be in classes with adult students. We have included the Blackfoot language and Blackfoot studies in our curriculum as core courses. Initially, there was resistance because of the internalization of the racism they had experienced; however, once they took the courses, a fundamental difference in their attitude towards themselves and their learning was apparent. That is the kind of thing we are talking about.
We are experiencing success in our institutions that is not paralleled anywhere else.
Because of our phenomenal success, most of the former CDIC employees in Lethbridge wanted us to be involved in the upgrading of aboriginal students in Lethbridge. Our success rate was over 60 per cent; on the other hand, in the other Lethbridge institutions, the success rate with aboriginal adult students is 5 per cent. The reality that we want you to appreciate is that it has to be from our own institutions.
You asked about the royal commission report. We were extremely disappointed that that report did not acknowledge the importance of First Nations controlled-and-owned programs and institutions. The idea still existed that, somehow, a mainstream institution will be a better place to develop the curriculum and to develop the programs of study. That is just not so.
I worked with the University of Lethbridge for thirteen and a half years in the Department of Native American Studies. Only lip service was given to the development of programs and courses. It is remarkable that they are selling the courses that I developed back to us now. The irony of it is that the courses I developed and designed at the University of Lethbridge are now taught at Red Crown College.
Ms Ayoungman: Your question related to whether we should have a conference.
Senator Andreychuk: I can probably phrase it a little differently, to shorten the debate and give some of the other senators a chance. Earlier in my career, I was the Chancellor of the University of Regina. As such, I have been involved in setting-up and accreditation issues. Can we, by some process, get a consensus towards that issue in the First Nations community? Is there a mechanism where we can get it?
Mr. Fiddler: We have already achieved consensus to a large extent amongst aboriginal scholars, not only in Canada but North America, relative to a lot of the issues we have talked about today. I do not think it is possible to get consensus among those people involved in aboriginal EDUCATION, because only a small percentage of aboriginal peoples are involved in aboriginal EDUCATION. Because it is such a growth industry, most of the people involved in aboriginal EDUCATION at the university and college level in Canada are non-aboriginal peoples. To a large extent, they are the ones who control the direction and extent of the programs at the various universities and colleges.
Our position is that we can get a consensus among our own people because our own scholars who work among the mainstream public institutions convey to us the same dissatisfaction with what is happening that those of us who work within aboriginal institutions talk about.
Support for a gathering of aboriginal scholars, not necessarily only in Canada but throughout North America or even indigenous scholars throughout the world, would achieve consensus very quickly and very affirmatively.
Senator Lavoie-Roux: On page 7 of your brief, you states:
For instance, the federal government, as well as trying to insinuate a neoconservative "equity" agenda in a proposed nation-wide review of First Nations Post-Secondary education programs, repeatedly attempts to enforce time lines which will make it impossible for us to treat the subject with the care it demands.
Has there been a group formed to do that nation-wide review of First Nations Post-Secondary education?
Ms Ayoungman: The process started about a year ago through the AFN, the National Indian EDUCATION Council. I happen to sit on that council. Those of us from Alberta said that we would be involved in the review because that was what we had been advocating for quite some time.
When we first saw the terms of reference, the process appeared to involve a "quick and dirty" number-crunching study to determine how to reallocate resources. We felt that that would be a useless exercise, one that we would not benefit from; that it would be a waste of time and money. We were not interested in being involved in that kind of process. What we wanted was a more comprehensive review that would give us an actual work plan.
We began to redefine the terms of reference, but at almost every turn, the terms of reference are narrowed. I will be attending a meeting next week in Ottawa to try to expand the focus. It is very narrow at this time.
Senator Lavoie-Roux: Were there representatives of the aboriginal community sitting on the committee?
Ms Ayoungman: Yes, there are First Nations representatives, but the federal bureaucrats keep narrowing the focus.
Senator Lavoie-Roux: The state of EDUCATION in the aboriginal community throughout Canada has not been very satisfactory. Is the description you have given limited to Alberta, Manitoba, B.C., and Saskatchewan, or is the situation the same all across Canada?
Ms Ayoungman: Our focus is Alberta, but a lot of the same issues are described in other areas.
Senator Lavoie-Roux: The Inuit and the Cree of Quebec have been given their own school boards. At the primary and secondary levels, their programs are in place; they make decisions about the priorities they want to establish. I cannot speak for the situation at the post-secondary level; I think it crosses over into the mainstream.
Ms Ayoungman: In the majority of instances, the control that we talk about usually means operating the existing programs, running provincial systems. There has not been adequate provision made for us to reflect upon and design the courses and curriculum needed in our own systems. We are talking about a major overhaul.
Senator Lavoie-Roux: Are you talking about Post-Secondary education, or throughout the all levels?
Ms Ayoungman: I am talking about throughout.
Senator Lavoie-Roux: But I do not think it is quite the same in every province.
Ms Ayoungman: It is very similar. What is called control is not really control; it is operating an external program.
Senator Lavoie-Roux: It is a question we will have to look at closely. It is not a simple issue; it is a very important one.
Senator Forest: I second what Senator Andreychuk has said, that this was no afterthought. We know that First Nations people's EDUCATION is under federal jurisdiction and that is the only place where we have some control.
You made a good point when you said that we need to look in our own backyard. I have been in involved primary, secondary, and Post-Secondary education, and I know that our backyard has been pretty messy. We have not met the needs of the people. I would like to congratulate those of you who are survivors of the system. You are gaining in spite of, rather than because of. You certainly have a lot of aboriginal scholars who are taking their place, as they should.
My question is a very specific one. You mentioned Minister Irwin's announcement of the First Nations Electronic EDUCATIONal Institute in November of 1996. Has anything further come from that?
Ms Ayoungman: In December, there was a meeting of the National Indian EDUCATION Council and we asked the Department of Indian Affairs, very specifically, to bring us up to date on that very point. We wanted to know at what stage it was, in order to determine whether it fits in with the work we were doing. They promised to update us. We have yet to receive an answer to that.
I will be attending a meeting next week, at which time I hope to get some answers. Again, what appears to be happening is that instead of us doing the designing, someone is designing for us. We have a lot of excellent ideas about how it might work and have made suggestions. We would hate to have something taken from our hands and put into the hand of someone else to design for us what they think might be best.
Senator Forest: It would be helpful for us to know before the report is written.
Ms Ayoungman: I do have two copies of papers that give a lot of details on the things we have talked about. I will leave them with the committee.
Senator Perrault: Years ago, I was made an honorary member of the Squamish, because I helped with one of their projects and was a personal friend of Dan George. We were good family friends. I think we have come a long way. There is an awful long way to go yet. There have been some great advances. In the Province of British Columbia, persons of aboriginal heritage have been made judges and are involved in the professions and in business. We are making progress. Many members of the general public are now beginning to understand some of the problems of the people from your community and communities like it across the country.
A recommendation came forth from a committee that Senator Andreychuk chaired, when we discovered, to our shock, the difficulties facing Indian veterans and how badly they had been treated. We have done something about it. The descendants of those veterans now have a scholarship fund. Little enough and it took a long time, but we are making progress. I wish we had far more time than we do.
In your brief, you state that one of the actions deemed essential to bring about substantive changes and improvements is the following:
...the support for the Aboriginal, community-based development of an electronic, post-secondary institute without walls;
That is a good idea. At the present time, there is an excellent aboriginal presence on the Internet. Not all of you have seen it. I think it is wonderful. I told the Squamish people that they should be on there, together with every other aboriginal band across this country. It is necessary, because there are 50 million people tuning into that web; it is a great way to postate people.
You want the electronic post-secondary institute. Do you envisage that full elementary school courses or university courses would be given in that media?
Ms Ayoungman: For example, one of the things that we immediately envision is that if Marie Marule wanted to offer some of her courses to people in other institutions across the country -- and she cannot be in 10 communities at once -- she can lecture from her institute and people from other institutions across the country can pick up that lecture off the Internet.
Senator Perrault: We are talking about distance EDUCATION?
Ms Ayoungman: On the Internet.
Senator Perrault: It is a great concept, and especially valuable if there can be interaction between the teacher and the students, which is feasible now.
Ms Ayoungman: I come from the Treaty 7 Tribal Council and we are a full Internet service-provider at our office. We did not become a full Internet service-provider through anyone's support, because to tell you the truth many people stood in our way when we said we were going to do just that. People actually told us that First Nations cannot be Internet service-providers, to which we responded that we did not know there was a law against it. We went ahead and did it. We pulled it off.
Senator Perrault: What would be illegal about that?
Ms Ayoungman: If you visit our site it is www.treaty7.org.
Senator Perrault: It is a good way to postate the general public. It could be a breakthrough in communications.
Ms Ayoungman: We have plans to hold Internet conferences where the three of us can be the keynote speakers to people all over the world. We have many exciting concepts.
Senator Perrault: I was at a conference in Fort St. John a few months ago where they portrayed the shape of things to come. A superb teacher, located in Prince George in our province -- it would perhaps be Edmonton in your province, or we could share some of these services because what is a political boundary line -- would have an opportunity to interact with the students asking questions. Instead of sending youngsters off to boarding schools, they would stay in their own communities. With a small satellite dish that downloads the signal from Prince George, the lesson is given by the teacher. An assistant teacher in those northern communities makes sure they do the homework and get the work done. It could be a major breakthrough for some of the bands.
Ms Ayoungman: Those are the very things we are developing as we speak.
Senator Perrault: You have my 100 per cent support and, I am sure, the support of everyone around this table. Instead of sending the kids off to boarding school -- what a break it would be for them, as well.
Senator Carney: Your presentation was very thoughtful. In the interests of fair play, I want to ask Don Fiddler if he could explain what he is doing in his centre. We had an interesting discussion about Red Crow Community College, which enticed us. We would like to know about other programs.
You talked a lot about process and form, and not a lot about content. I am interested in what it is that you want to do that you need this process for. We can follow that up in other ways. What are you doing at the En'owkin Centre?
Mr. Fiddler: The En'owkin Centre is located in Penticton, British Columbia. It is owned by the Okanagan Indian EDUCATIONal Resources Society, which is a consortium of the members from the Okanagan bands.
Our main focus over the last numbers of years has been in fine arts. In particular, we have developed a writing school program, the En'owkin International School of Writing, which is the only indigenous writing school in the world. We focus primarily upon the development of writers from our communities. We draw students from across Canada. We focus on the development of our writers. If we wish to have some impact on the world, have our aboriginal voices heard, we need to train people.
We offer a two-year fine arts program in conjunction with the University of Victoria. We developed the program and created the courses. It marks one of the first times in British Columbia where an outside institution was able to create a program that was accepted by a university or college. It is accepted as the first two years of an undergraduate program.
Senator Carney: Are the courses presented in a native language?
Mr. Fiddler: The instruction is done in the English language, because we are dealing with students from all over Canada. We are dealing primarily with the development of the aboriginal voice in Canada through writing.
We have a publishing house, Theytus Books, which is Canada's foremost aboriginal publishing house. We have worked hard at developing and promoting aboriginal literature in Canada and promoting aboriginal writers. We also have a visual arts program.
Our focus in the En'owkin Centre is that aboriginal arts have captured the world's attention -- through our writers, speakers, performers and visual artists, the world benefits. Canada utilizes aboriginal peoples to a large extent in the promotion of Canadian culture, but very little return comes back to our people in terms of monitory rewards.
Let us focus on the development of aboriginal arts and culture and thus receive some of the benefit of its true value in the economy of Canada.
In addition to that, we work with environmental rights organizations in North America, as well as indigenous peoples' organizations in North America.
Senator Carney: You must have a program or some written material about your program. I suggest you send it to the committee so that we can read about what it is you are so thoughtfully promoting.
The Chairman: Thank you Dr. Ayoungman, Don Fiddler, and Marie Smallface-Marule for your excellent presentation and for your good answers to our questions. If you have any further information, we would be pleased to receive it prior to writing our report, so we can give you some strong support in that report.
Honourable senators, we now have before the committee from the Corporate Higher EDUCATION Forum, Dr. Bernard Bressler.
Please proceed, Dr. Bressler.
Dr. Bernard Bressler, Vice-President Research, University of British Columbia: Mr. Chairman, I want to thank the committee for allowing me to be here today on behalf of the Corporate Higher EDUCATION Forum. The Chair of this forum is David Strangway, who is President of the University of British Columbia. He could not be here today.
Some of the material presented I will present here today was also presented to the Industry Canada Standing Committee on Science and Technology in Ottawa in November. In preparing for today, I have taken away from and added to that presentation in order to emphasize the interaction on the research side, which is not often seen with respect to what Post-Secondary education is doing.
Governments throughout the world are the largest funders of fundamental research of all types, including the physical sciences, social sciences and the life sciences. In that regard, Canada is no exception. The motivation for these expenditures is to create a high-quality lifestyle for its citizens and to maintain a competitive position in the world marketplace. The return from public investment in fundamental research is significant. The principal sponsors for this investment, the Canadian taxpayers, are also the beneficiaries.
Why are some countries more innovative than others? It is because these countries, for example Germany and Japan, are busily promoting sustainable economic growth. These countries have set a high premium on maintaining their capacity for innovation by investing heavily in research and development, EDUCATION and training. These are the core elements of a national system of innovation. For years, scientists have justified that receiving government funding for research will eventually be returned many times over in economic benefit to society.
Edwin Mansfield, the Director of the Centre for Economics and Technology at the University of Pennsylvania, has examined this question directly by asking 76 major U.S. companies which new products and processes could not have been developed without academic research. He chose companies from many sectors, including information processing, chemicals, electrical equipment, instruments, drugs, metals and oil.
The specific question asked was: What percentage of their new products and processes commercialized from 1975 to 1985 could not have been developed without academic research carried out in the previous 15 years? The results were impressive: 11 per cent of the products and 9 per cent of the processes had depended on academic research. He also found that he could put an approximate dollar figure on the value of academic research to industry and to society as a whole. The bottom line is that investment in academic research has an average annual rate of return to society of about 28 per cent. This payback is equivalent to putting the money in a savings account and receiving annually 28 cents on every dollar invested.
In addition to the high rate of return on the money invested, there is another very important lesson to learn from Mansfield's analysis. Although he conducted this study in 1991, he asked companies to evaluate their products going all the way back to 1975. In other words, it is fundamental to any national scientific policy developed in Canada that we have a perspective of long-term durability of government policies in countries such as Germany, Japan, and other members of the OECD group, policies that have allowed these nations to advance economically.
The Chairman: Dr. Bressler, most of the committee members have read your brief. Could you elaborate. You wrote the speech, you know what is there.
Mr. Bressler: I will deal with the essential elements of the speech and we can go on to the questions.
The point we are trying to make here is that in order for Canada to come out of where it is right now, under its current debt and deficit situation, it is essential that it develop a much more indigenous growth of its own economy.
By that I mean that for many years our country has been a net importer of business. It has happened through large corporations investing in Canada, as branch plants, to capture the Canadian market. As we all know, the money goes back to where the head offices of these corporations are.
One of the things that has allowed Canada to compete effectively on the world stage most recently has been the growth opportunities of our own small business sector. We are now at the stage in this country where 95 per cent of the companies in Canada employ less than 100 people. That is a good thing. These are small companies that have developed in our country. They contribute to sustained growth and sustained job creation because they have come from within.
The message that we bring from the post-secondary institutions is that we are a major contributor to the development of these small companies. I do not want to rely entirely on my memory, so there is one paragraph that I would like to read. It is an example of the University of British Columbia's activities in this area of producing this indigenous population of companies in Canada. I talk about UBC, but this represents many universities in this country.
As I said to a group of Research Vice-Presidents last week in Ottawa, when we were talking about this speech, "Any one of you could have written it." That is true in terms of most of the big universities in this country.
UBC's activities in this area, meaning technology transfer and spin-off company development, shows the scope and benefits of university technology transfer. During the last 10 years, industry-sponsored research has increased from $1.7 million to $23.9 million -- that is, industry contracting into UBC to do research. This represents an increase from 2.5 to 17.2 per cent of our total sponsored research budget.
During this period, the Industry Liaison Office has licensed a total of 193 technologies to Canadian companies. The majority of those companies have been in British Columbia, because in our case, we are funded so heavily by the B.C. government and other programs resident in B.C. that we try our best to license to B.C. companies, but not necessarily. We will go where the best licensee is available.
In addition to the technologies, we have created over 77 spin-off companies, 98 per cent of which are resident in B.C. In the past year alone we have received a new lot of 115 invention disclosures and have filed for 74 patents. We have earned $1.3 million in royalties, and our equity holdings are now approaching the $3 million level. This is in publicly traded companies.
That is one of the key messages.
The other key message is that it has not been possible to do this without creating a synergistic relationship with the industrial community in our country. To the credit of the government of the day in 1987/88, they challenged the academic community in this country by introducing two things, which probably were not related. The first one was the matching grants program for the granting councils, about which Senator Carney is familiar because I was in her office in Ottawa talking about that at about that time.
The administrators of the matching grants program told the community and the granting councils, "We cannot continue to fund without end. The only way to increase your budgets is to attract funding from the private sector." Universities across the country were challenged to attract private money.
The other thing, which was unrelated but occurred simultaneously, was the famous Bill C-22 patent law change, which affected one sector at the time, the pharmaceutical sector. The implications of Bill C-22 on that sector -- it was not in law, but it was a challenge -- was that their patent position would change but they would have to spend more money on R&D, intramurally and extramurally. Those two challenges have been met to a significant extent by our community.
So, my main message to you is that by supporting Post-Secondary education and research, we are supporting the economic growth of our country; and in so doing, in the long run, we will keep the country from spiralling back into debt and deficit.
Senator Perrault: I was not aware that we had fallen behind to that extent. What is the reason, or is there any one reason for it?
Mr. Bressler: The reason is stated in the paper. The government has to begin to recognize that research is an investment.
Senator Perrault: We have not been sufficiently active in providing assistance?
Mr. Bressler: The government has not been active since the early 1980s. I do not think we have been at the 2-per-cent level since the early 1980s. You cannot quote me on that, but I know we have not been there since about 1988-89.
Senator Perrault: If we were to recommend one course of action to provide an impetus for R&D in Canada, what would that be? If you were writing this report, what would you advise?
Mr. Bressler: The advice I would give is to reach the targets that are fundamentally there for all of the nations we compete with in the OECD group. We have to start spending 2 per cent or more on R&D in this country. I am not saying that it has to be spend exclusively at universities, because that is not the answer. We also have to encourage the industrial sector to spend it in-house as well. That is also fundamental to job creation. I say go to the 2 per cent.
I have just returned from the Korea leg of the Team Canada mission, where I chaired a session on science and technology exchange between Korea and Canada.
It was interesting to hear at the plenary, before we got into our workshops, Arthur Carty, who is the Korean equivalent to the President of NRC, stand up and say that he was proud that Korea just joined the OECD and they were above 2 per cent.
Senator Perrault: The target is 5 per cent?
Mr. Bressler: Their target is 5 per cent and they just joined. They are already in the middle of the pack. We have been there from the beginning and we are at the bottom.
Senator Perrault: Are they concentrating their research and development on any specific sector?
Mr. Bressler: They are being quite pragmatic, at least at the session I was at. Biotechnology is playing a huge role, both in medical and non-medical applications. Aquaculture was one of the subjects talked about at the workshops I was chairing. In that part of the world, which has a huge population, they consume an inordinate amount of fish, and neither we nor they can supply it.
Senator Perrault: Is Canada lagging behind in any specific sector, or is it just a general failure as the world passes us by?
Mr. Bressler: I wish I knew the answer. The truth of the matter is that we do pretty well with what you give us. The dilemma is that we are very good at what we do. Many of the Nobel prizes that have been won in the last 15 years have been won by Canadians, but unfortunately, they have not been resident in Canada. They have been elsewhere; they have been transplanted.
As a nation, we do a relatively good job. I say that taking into account the previous speakers, because I listened to their presentation and am very sensitive to what they say. At UBC, we have a lot of programs to encourage joint cooperation.
Having said that, and that is a problem, we do pretty well, but the world is going to pass us by.
Senator Perrault: We could do much better.
Mr. Bressler: We should be doing much better.
Senator Lavoie-Roux: This committee agreed that without walking on eggshells it was entitled to make recommendations about research and development. This is a matter that belongs to the federal government.
My question to you is: Have you done a comparison vis-à-vis how much money has been allocated to research and development among the countries of the G-7 over the last five or 10 years? You have a tableau?
Mr. Bressler: We have a tableau. We sent that table to Prime Minister Chrétien and to Paul Martin. I gave it to Raymond Chan and Ted McWhinney a week ago. We have been lobbying everybody in the last few weeks, leading up to the budget.
Senator Lavoie-Roux: We would appreciate it if you would send it to us.
Mr. Bressler: It compares several countries to Canada. It uses 1990 as 100 per cent and shows the change in funding.
Senator Lavoie-Roux: Over a certain number of years?
Mr. Bressler: Over the 10 years.
Senator Lavoie-Roux: Among the group of seven, but it could be among other countries.
Mr. Bressler: While I was waiting for my chance to speak, I was looking at something I just received in the mail, which I could leave with you. It is a graph which shows where we have gone over the last few years. It is entitled "Canada's Science Crisis: Its Problem and Solution." It shows the decline in the granting councils in general in 1990 dollars.
Senator Carney: I enjoyed your off-the-cuff presentation. I want to talk about process. You have made two points that are noteworthy to me. One is that the percentage of funding has declined. But also, you point out that the processes with regard to the matching grants and the Networks of Excellence have been successful. As an economist, I would say that through those two particular processes the productivity of research effort has actually increased, notwithstanding the drop in funding. I am not going to argue the funding issue.
Is there any other process that you think we could focus on in this committee? In a limited field, it does not deal with abstract research. If matching grants is productive, if Network of Excellence is productive, is there some other mechanism or process you think would assist the research community?
Mr. Bressler: I do not have an easy answer to that. One of the key elements to research successes comes from individual researchers doing their thing.
Senator Carney: If they knew how to do it, they would not have to do it.
Mr. Bressler: That is right. For that reason, we openly applaud the NCE program. That is not an issue. We have worked hard to get it renewed. We have been to the minister's office and have lobbied in that regard. We have shown the economic benefits of it. What we are going to lose sight of is the grass roots development of research which contributes at least as much, but as Edwin Mansfield tried to show in his report, more over the long term.
Everyone recognizes that governments are on a four-year cycle, sometimes five. But what we are talking about here is a country and its long-term survival. In that regard, you need to nurture both.
The bottom line is that someone has to make some very tough decisions and they have to be based on their eventual outcome. It is clear, after what we have been through in the last five years, that we have to get rid of our deficit and then we have to get rid of our debt. To do that, we need to create growth in our own economy. I have no answer.
Senator Carney: You do point out that one is not a proxy for the other. You do need increased funding; in addition, you need these new, more productive processes that build the critical mass.
Mr. Bressler: That creates a certain inertia on its own. It creates a pay-off, and in some ways creates a faster pay-off. You create a lot of energy by putting all of those minds together; when you are throwing a lot of money at a problem, it becomes a little easier to solve.
Senator Carney: You mean parallel tracks: funding and process.
Senator Andreychuk: I will bow to your wish not to have the paper read. However, one of those the areas this committee should be looking at is research and development; to this point, I am not satisfied that we have had a sufficient number of witnesses to explore that with. I would have appreciated having this paper read into the record so that more people could have had access to it.
During the 1980s and 1990s, the subject of international trade and what it means to our economy has often been discussed. Those discussions have left us believing that people believe there is not much we can do in Canada. I am pleased that you have put out the issues of research and development.
The question at the university level that needs to be addressed -- and you may have some indication about this. You are talking about research that is innovative; we have been talking about applied research and basic research. How would you class innovative research? Your paper simply seems to refer to applied research. You do say, however, that universities and structures and upgrading of equipment is necessary, and that that is also a problem.
Mr. Bressler: If I understand the question correctly, I used the term "innovative" in a generic way, referring to both basic and applied research. There are many examples, and I have cited a few: the development of nylon; the transistor; the laser disc reader. All of those came from very fundamental, basic studies, sometimes in totally unrelated fields. The person who invented the laser disc player or the CD-ROM did not set out to invent the CD-ROM. It resulted from the an application of very simple -- not simple at the time but simple with hindsight -- physics that can be applied. I strongly believe in both.
Universities are under a lot of pressure, because of the serious funding constraints on the research side of their mission, to wrestle with applied versus basic. In my job, I see both sides and I get complaints from both sides -- more from the basic side, who are worried that they are being pushed into the applied arena because that is where the money is.
We need both and we need to be courageous enough to try to fund both. What I said cannot be denied: 10 years ago, we had less than $2 million worth of contracts for research and now we have $24 million. When I ask my people who work for me to make projections so that I can plan for next year, they tell me that we are going for $30 million on the industry side. They do not know that for sure, but what they do know for sure is where we are going on the granting side, and that is down, because it is already in the federal budget.
Senator Andreychuk: There are indications that your message is being heard in Ottawa to a certain extent, and the budget will be coming down next week. If all the budget leaks are accurate, there will be money for research and development. NSERC has been cut back; research in the social sciences, humanities, and medical field has been cut back. The infrastructures are in need. If we put back the research dollars that have been taken out, and we hold our own as we were a few years ago, will it impact the statistics in your paper?
Mr. Bressler: The impact on the statistics in the paper will not be felt immediately. Firstly, the total amount of money put back to the granting councils is not the total impact. The government has many other places where it could spend money on R&D. The NRC is a good example of where they have cut back dramatically. There are other places. There are government S&T credit programs where industry can develop research in-house.
Senator Andreychuk: If we put back the money that has been taken out because of cutbacks, will we change the direction of these figures, or do we have to inject this as a top priority?
Mr. Bressler: You are not going to change it because we have been playing catch-up for too long. If we go back to where we were three years ago when the current administration started to cut the deficit, which was appropriate, by the way, John Manley said to me many times, "I took 50 per cent out of most of my departments, I only took 15 per cent out of the granting councils." We accept that. We all have to take our turn.
We have been playing catch up. It depends on how fast we want to take that leap to start to reach the 2 per cent and the 2.5 per cent level in terms of GDP. Re-establishing the budgets to the granting councils of course is important. It is the beginning of a step in the right direction, but it is not the only step. There has to be a greater commitment; there has to be a plan. They have produced a document. I know this is not the subject of this committee.
Senator Andreychuk: It is.
Mr. Bressler: We have gone beyond it, but it affects Post-Secondary education. It is our hope that the government will put teeth to the S&T plan, but with the election coming up, we are in delay tactic.
Senator Forest: I am extremely interested in research and development and appreciate the need for it and the fact that it does drive much of the productivity of the country.
With respect to basic and applied research, it seems to me that one of the ways we have missed the boat in public relations from the universities is that we have not made the connection, although you have in this paper, between the basic research of sometimes a rather esoteric nature and the practical developments of it. That is one of the ways we are going to have to communicate, not just to government but to the public, the needs of the university for basic research.
Do you have any ideas about how best we can go about that?
Mr. Bressler: Yes, we do. You are correct; it has taken us a long time to get our act together to do it. Some of you may be aware of the wonderful campaign in Alberta entitled "Research Makes Sense." It came out of the University of Alberta. I have started a similar initiative here. I met with one of my team this morning. Last week in Ottawa, under the auspices of AUCC, about 30 vice-presidents research met for the first time on a national scale. We are all planning, in one form or another, to increase the public awareness of the duality of our research and EDUCATION at our universities. It is long overdue.
Senator Forest: With Martha Piper going to UBC, you will have to be on your toes.
Mr. Bressler: That is right. It is fortuitous that I started the campaign at UBC when I become vice-president research. A year and a month ago, I started putting it together without knowing who our new president would be. With Martha Piper coming on board -- and I know her because she is my counterpart at the University of Alberta -- the timing could not be better.
Senator Forest: That "Research Makes Sense" is her baby.
Mr. Bressler: We need another slogan for UBC and I cannot find anything better.
Senator Forest: She will think of one.
Mr. Bressler: She will think of one -- "A Bridge to Our Future." We have another one we are thinking of, "Research Turns on Knowledge." I am looking forward to Martha Piper's arrival. We are all aware that we have stayed back too long as a university community. It is hard to go out and promote yourself, but we know we have to do it.
The Chairman: Thank you, Dr. Bressler for your excellent presentation. Senator Carney would like to have a copy of your speech, which you did not have a chance to read, included in the Minutes of the Proceedings of today's meeting so that it can be read by everybody.
Senator Lavoie-Roux: I so move, Mr. Chairman.
The Chairman: Senator Lavoie-Roux has made the motion.
Motion agreed to.
(For text of report see Appendix p. 6«1»:1)
The Chairman: Our next witness is Mr. Michael Gardiner.
Mr. M. Gardiner, Chairperson, Canadian Federation of Students, British Columbia: Mr. Chairman, I had the opportunity to address the committee yesterday during the Student Leaders Roundtable and I am pleased to have another opportunity today.
Since I also have the fortunate opportunity of having the last spot of the day, I will endeavour to make it the shortest spot of the day, for the convenience of everyone.
After yesterday's roundtable, we returned to the office and discussed what had happened in the roundtable with the students who were present. We had a very interesting discussion and what we concluded was that there is some need for Senate reform -- that is, we need to make the Senate stronger. I say that not to "kiss up", or anything like that, but because the kind of discussion we had yesterday represents why it is that the Senate was created in the first place, and the Senate is continuing to play an important role. If the role is to provide sober second thought, this committee is indeed doing that in an active way -- that is, sober second thought around the change in direction our EDUCATION system has taken in the last 10 years.
I was also thinking yesterday about how frustrating it must be for some who have watched the system develop; who have participated in the decision-making around promoting and advancing the EDUCATION system in Canada; who have seen it strengthened and developed into one of the premier EDUCATION systems in the world, through until the late 1970s when it began somewhat of a decline which has recently been accelerated for a whole number of reasons and pressures. I think about how much it frustrates me, as someone in the system, that that is occurring, and I know it must frustrate you as well.
Today, in the interest of brevity, I will cover a number of topics which were raised yesterday and which are not necessarily contained in the report I have provided. The report which I have provided is sort of a lofty, idealist kind of report. It talks about what direction we think the federal government should take in advancing the Post-Secondary education system in Canada.
We certainly hope that this committee will be able to make recommendations that will correct the direction that the EDUCATION system has taken, recommendations that will assist in expanding and improving the system in Canada with a view to ensuring that we have one of the premier EDUCATION systems in the world.
I will start by talking about why that is important and why we, as an organization, believe it is important. We have called for a national vision for Post-Secondary education. Why is it that we should have a national vision for Post-Secondary education? What we have seen recently is a shift in terms of provincial policy and provincial attitudes towards the Post-Secondary education system, and it has become a very short-run-oriented system. It has become a vision of this whole language around learner-centred curriculum, student as customer, and all of these things which, in themselves, have some small amount of legitimacy.
What is being lost is the vision of the Post-Secondary education system as uniter and builder of Canadian society. It is now seen as something that provides individuals with opportunity and provides business with skilled workers. However, the most important aspect of the Post-Secondary educational system is being lost -- that is, building a strong and vibrant Canada.
It is being lost because provinces have very specific and short-term interests in terms of the election cycle and trying to meet economic demand. More and more, we see that attempt being made through the EDUCATION system. As the jobless rate rises in this country, we see more and more students, young people, and people who have been in the work force for some time returning to the system in an attempt to find work, and the jobs are not there. The EDUCATION system is being blamed, and thus attempts are made to reform the EDUCATION system to fix what it is in the job market that is not working.
The role I see by putting in place a national vision and national standards for Post-Secondary education is ensuring that the EDUCATIONal system work towards maintaining a strong and vibrant Canadian society. I will touch on a few aspects of the cutbacks and the impacts.
One key issue is the expansion of the loss of universality. We are at Capilano College today, and an excellent opportunity presents itself to discuss something that has happened here. As the college has become overcrowded, the institution has looked for ways to get around that overcrowding, much in the same way as we have debates about a two-tiered health system -- where we could open up private clinics all over the country and allow people to charge significant user fees; those who are rich can access health care right away and those who are not will have to wait until their names comes up on the waiting list.
We see the same thing happening in Capilano College, and at numerous other colleges throughout B.C., where students can now take courses in the summertime, core curriculum courses like English 101 and 102 for which there were not enough sections in the fall and spring semesters, for the full cost, three-and-a-half times what it would cost the student in tuition fees in the winter semester. Those students who can afford it are able to take those courses in the summertime, while those who cannot afford it must wait for those courses to become available during the regular session, when the tuition fees are lower.
We have also seen in British Columbia, and are seeing, in an attempt to maintain the tuition freeze that was announced, the introduction of massive international student differential fees. International students will now be faced with tuition fees of between three-and-a-half and five times what a Canadian student would be charged. This is beyond cost-recovery; it is profit-making, the industry of selling EDUCATION to foreigners. The result of this is something that was touched on yesterday: the issue of EDUCATION playing a role in international development.
The result of this type of differentiation is that diversity on our university and college campuses will be lost, and is being lost, as increasingly only those students from wealthy countries, not just students who have the wealth to attend but countries that have the wealth for those students to attend, will be able to attend. We will lose the diversity of international students and their contribution to our campuses if this trend continues. This will continue to happen as provinces, exercising short-term vision, increase tuition fees significantly to international students.
Another area, which I will not go into it in any detail because I think the College educators' representative, Ed Lavalle, touched on it very well yesterday, is the issue of apprenticeship in institutional-based training.
More and more, people are having to upgrade specific skill sets to maintain their profession. One excellent way to do that is through apprenticeships. The federal government recently has committed to withdraw all of its funding for those programs, whether direct or indirect. Those programs are suffering significantly already as a result of cutbacks in that area.
The use of EDUCATIONal technology was also something that was touched on yesterday. In British Columbia, it seemed a panacea, a cure-all, for the lack of funding. Even though the technology is expensive, an estimated $100 million just to get the network up and running, more and more provinces will turn to this because it is the "hip" thing to do; however, they will discover within a few years that perhaps it was not the best EDUCATIONal planning. It appears that decisions are being made around cost-effectiveness and expandability of the system, without any analysis of the quality of the delivery.
We heard testimony yesterday from a student who talked about a registering for an off-campus program only to withdraw from it shortly thereafter, as well as failure rates of upwards of 80 per cent in some of these programs. EDUCATION which comes over the computer excludes that whole concept of having people interact and learning through interaction, not just about their course of study but about themselves and their country and about people from their country.
My best studying in the four years I studied economics and political science took place at two or three in the morning when four or five of us were cramming for a test the next day, sitting around discussing the issues, and saying, "No, that is not quite right," and building on that analysis. As we turn more and more to computers and video conferencing, that type of interaction is lost.
I wish to caution this committee against taking the same approach as the provinces with regard to viewing technology as a panacea. As our incoming chairperson said yesterday, you should look at it as a device to assist in the delivery of EDUCATION, but certainly not the method of delivery of EDUCATION.
The last area I want to touch on is research and development. We heard in the last presentation some discussion about the success universities have had in raising corporate funding. As a student organization with a large number of graduate members, and as Canadians, we have concerns about the expanding role of corporate funding in research, because we will see a shift towards research for profitable ventures, rather than research that will promote the social good -- what is socially necessary research and what is necessary for the building of Canada, rather than what is necessary for the building of the corporate infrastructure and the economic and technology. The two are related in some ways, but very distinct in others. Therefore, caution should be exercised as federal funding and provincial funding for research initiatives and infrastructure devolve. We have to ensure that we maintain an adequate level to ensure that the socially necessary research can be conducted.
As I mentioned earlier, our recommendations are quite lofty, and many would say ideal. However, we would hope that this Senate committee will have the ability to persuade the federal government that this is a direction that we should be moving into. I would be happy to take questions.
The Chairman: Thank you very much for your presentation. I do not know if Senator Forest is ready with questions.
Senator Forest: Thank you for your presentation, Michael. I would like to say at the outset that I hope students will always be idealistic. We get jaded soon enough in life and have to attend to all the practicalities. If ever there were a need, it is for the students to remind us that the universities are there for them. I also share many of your concerns about private funding, which perhaps takes away from the autonomy of the universities, about technology and the lack of interrelationships.
I have always been a great supporter of having foreign students in our universities. In this regard, I asked a question about the University of Alberta and am disappointed to see how the numbers are down there, compared to what they were a few years ago.
You stated that foreign students are paying increased tuition fees, up to five times higher than they were, and that that could involve profit-sharing. It has been a while since I was involved with the university, but at that time, tuition fees were international students were 10 per cent to 15 per cent higher than for Canadian residents. I know they are now up to 20 per cent or 25 per cent. Even if they were at 20 per cent now, and they did charge five times the amount, it would still be only cost-recovery, unless my figures are all wrong.
Mr. Gardiner: The figure that is used on cost-recovery is in the 20 per cent range. The costs from program to program are vastly different. Some institutions are able to deliver a number of undergraduate programs at the cost that the students currently pay in tuition fees. It varies significantly, program to program, depending upon where profit is being realized and where profit is not being realized. In some cases, that three to five times will not meet the cost of delivery. In some cases, it will greatly exceed the cost of delivery.
Senator Forest: I was curious to know what the present levels are, but certainly to discourage foreign students from registering at Canadian universities is most unfortunate. The other side of the coin is that many of those students are from wealthy families who can afford to pay their way. In any event, we need the diversity which they bring to our institution.
Senator Perrault: This is an excellent brief. I think we will all reread with a lot of interest. We have a very active student body in the province of British Columbia. I met with some of the students at Simon Fraser University the other day and they left us with a host of ideas. All the notes have been summarized and they are going to be part of the record of this committee.
Two questions come to mind. You say that the tax cuts have been affecting the quality of the EDUCATION. This is really the first time we have heard this in such direct terms. This reflects the views of the students. Is an increase in class size one of the factors?
Mr. Gardiner: In British Columbia, we are only beginning to see the tangible effects of the cutbacks. The Province of British Columbia has maintained funding each of the last two years at non-inflationary levels. So in real dollars, the level has stayed the same. There has only been the inflationary decline. But at the same time, enrolment in British Columbia as a destination province has increased significantly, with 11,000 new, full-time-equivalent students in B.C.'s colleges and universities, on top of approximately 200,000 now. It was a fairly significant increase with no additional provincial funding.
What has happened is that institutions, in scrambling to meet their quotas, have not increased the number of classes, but instead have increased the number of students in classes. My sister is an excellent example. She registered at the University of Victoria and wait-listed for 18 classes. She did not get into a single class, after being accepted to the university. She ran from class to class to class hoping that she would get in. However, she did not get into one of the classes for which she wait-listed. Her complaint was not uncommon.
We have seen the universities artificially padding their enrolment figures by letting people in, but they were unable to take any courses. There are numerous examples, and I am sure the students at Simon Fraser may have told you also that there are students sitting in the aisles in the theatres and exceeding fire limits in rooms. All of these things are very common occurrences.
The community college system has always prided itself in providing that small and close relationship for the learner who was not necessarily able to immediately adapt to a university environment, and not many students who go to university immediately are. That intimacy that was provided in the classroom in colleges is being lost; as well, the classroom is being filled up. Teachers are being asked to provide efficiencies in the college system. Efficiencies in the college system means they teach more classes with less prep time.
[Translation]
Senator Lavoie-Roux: Thank you for your presentation. I believe you speak French, do you not?
Mr. Gardiner: A little.
Senator Lavoie-Roux: This will give you an opportunity to practise. I would like you to give us some concrete examples of what you call two-tiered EDUCATION.
I did not quite understand the examples you gave. Could you give us a few others which would truly prove your assertion. After all, you are making a fairly serious claim here.
[English]
For example, two-tiered EDUCATION.
[Translation]
Mr. Gardiner: I will answer in English because my French vocabulary is extremely limited.
[English]
I will answer in English. Examples of the two-tiered system as it is evolving in British Columbia and across the country are becoming more numerous. The Master of Business Administration program is probably one you have all heard about, where they are now being offered in the same style as Yale and Harvard at $25,000 a year tuition fees at Western University and Queen's. The University of British Columbia is now considering a similar thing.
What is more disturbing to us, as disturbing as that is, is the shift in British Columbia colleges. When the college system was established in B.C., tuition fees were never anything more than a token registration fee. They have since moved to being a significant user fee, in the neighbourhood of $1,200 to $1,400 per full-time student per year.
At Douglas College, Kwantlen College, University College of the Fraser Valley, Cariboo College, Capilano College, and a few others, they have begun offering courses like English 100, English 101, Women's Studies 100, Women's Studies 101, and Physics 101. All of those different aspects of core curriculum are being offered outside of the regular semesters. In the summer semester, they are offering those kinds of programs, in order to utilize the space in the college, and for this they are charging three times the tuition fee rate that would be paid during the fall semester.
It is a tough issue because one can very adamantly argue that by getting these students who can afford to pay in the summer out of the way, they will not be taking the courses in the fall, and those who need them will more readily achieve them. They will be able to get into those courses because the wealthier students, who are able to take them in the summer, will not be taking them in the fall. It is an argument which plays very well and is difficult to refute, except on the broader level, that it is unfair. It is patently unfair to those students who are unable to afford to pay that level of fees, because it means they will be in the system longer and likely in larger classes than those students who are able to pay more. We are now offering at our public colleges in B.C. one system of EDUCATION for those who have significant resources and another for those who do not have significant resources.
Senator Lavoie-Roux: Do you feel that as a result this creates drop-outs in students; either that, or not registering, because the fees are too high, not only in terms of what you just described, but in terms of the general fees? At some places, it is many thousands of dollars. Do you have any data on that?
Mr. Gardiner: Julian is sitting behind me, and he is a student at Capilano College. He has been very active around the cost-recovery issue. I am sure he would like to answer that question.
Senator Lavoie-Roux: He may answer it, if he wishes to.
Mr. Gardiner: It is very difficult to measure because the province does not keep the statistical data that would show entries and entrants. What is available is anecdotal evidence, and that anecdotal evidence is based on the kind of students that are seen on campus by student unions, the changing environments on campuses, and those types of things. There is a wide perception that, more and more, fewer poor students are attending universities and colleges.
By the same token, demand is significantly up because there are far more people who are unemployed; unemployment increases demand greatly, because it is an option.
The most tangible measurement is the increased demand for student assistance and the increased number of people who are borrowing to the maximum in the student-assistance program. In terms of measurable statistical data about the impact of increased costs, it is very difficult to track and develop. It is much more easily read anecdotally, through individuals phoning our office and telling us that they will have to drop out if they do not receive emergency assistance and us being unable to help them and assuming that they then later drop out. It is very difficult to measure.
Senator Lavoie-Roux: In your recommendation, you say that the change from the EPF formula of financing health and EDUCATION and the switch to the CHST will decrease the funding of both health and EDUCATION. On the other hand, the government did it because, as we say in Quebec -- maybe elsewhere too -- the federal government shovelled it onto the provincial laps and the municipalities say that the provinces shovelled it onto their laps in order to rposte their deficit. We could discuss for a long time at what rate the deficit should be rposted and over what period of time, and is an objective that is valid. This is where most money is being spent, apart from employment insurance, but it is one area in which they could rposte the deficit. What else would you suggest?
Mr. Gardiner: I am tempted to talk much too long, so I will try to be brief. Debt and deficit politics is one of my favourite issues. I do agree that the deficit is a problem, debt is a problem, because it represents a transfer of wealth away from those programs that need to be funded to those who have savings. In the long term, deficit and debt are not sustainable. Certainly a goal of the federal government must be, in the short run and the long run, to make an attempt to rposte the deficit, to rposte the debt.
There must be an examination of what targets are used. The target that should be used, rather than rposting it in real dollars, should be a rposttion relative to the Gross National Product and the growth of the Gross Domestic Product, which is the historical method of measuring debt and deficit.
As a percentage of our GDP, at the end of World War II the debt was greater than it is now. Rather than withdrawing funding from Post-Secondary education, the federal government got into the business of funding Post-Secondary education, expanding that role throughout, recognizing the benefits of funding Post-Secondary education adequately. The economic benefit of postating this number of people is that in the long run it would play a role in alleviating that deficit.
If you are asking me where else I believe we should be looking, there are a variety of areas in program spending but we also need to look at revenue measures. I am glad to see that recently the federal government has looked at the interest rate policy, because through the late 1980s, that policy was very damaging in terms of the growth of the deficit. We now have stabilized and low interest rates will play a significant role in helping us to alleviate the deficit.
Some measures are being taken. Those measures that need to be held to are not those measures which require significant rposttions in program spending, because in terms of the multiplier effect of rposttions in spending, the federal government does not get a dollar for every dollar in spending it cuts. There needs to be some caution around that.
Senator Lavoie-Roux: Thank you for your presentation. Before closing, I want to tell you that I am in agreement -- and I do not know if it is exactly worded this way in your brief.
[Translation]
In my view, the time as come for the government to once again give priority consideration to EDUCATION. Of course, many things have happened in the health care field and priority issues have emerged, for example the aging of the population. Because of a host of factors, we have spent a great deal on health care and we cannot continue to make cuts that I would term indecent to this area.
However, there are other areas where the government spends a great deal of money. Perhaps the time has come for it to review its priorities and to put EDUCATION back on the priority list where it belongs. We have heard from a great many people, not only here but elsewhere. It is important that we reconsider the role we want EDUCATION to play. Everyone has told us that EDUCATION must move to the forefront.
I have a question for you regarding your Post-Secondary education Advisor Council.
[English]
I think it is a good idea. I do not know if it is feasible, but it might not be a bad idea.
Mr. Gardiner: If I could respond briefly to the issue of the Post-secondary EDUCATION Advisory Council. I mentioned yesterday a process we went through in British Columbia called Charting a New Course: Strategic Planning for Colleges and Institutes. It is a process that Ed Lavalle, President of the College educators, mentioned as well. That process brought together faculty, students, government and administrators. They came out with a document that sets out a reasonably good vision for the system given the current political flavour. It was a much better document than would have been achieved had government set about doing it on its own.
While it may be difficult to establish some kind of Post-Secondary education advisory council, we have seen in British Columbia the benefits of bringing all of the partners in the system together to look at the system.
Senator Andreychuk: You enumerated the things that universities and community colleges are trying to do to cope with the fact that they are not receiving money. I presume that they were not the right directions, given the obvious conclusion that you come to that there has to be more money injected, which is not going to happen. Universities have been working with industry in the area of applied research to inject guidelines and ethics into the processes. They cannot abandon those processes until they do get some reassurance from whatever source, government or elsewhere, that there will be funds.
Universities are changing. Many of them have done something they should have done 50 years ago -- that is, set up corporation endowment funds. There were wealthy people in Canada who, had the case been made to them that EDUCATION should have been their charity of choice, may have had some leeway and flexibility.
I wonder if you would give us the same speech in two years, if the debt and deficit cutting continues. Will you still argue that more money should be put into the system? Or will you then be more inclined to side with what the administrators of the universities have been forced to do?
Mr. Gardiner: I am not attempting to blame the administrators of universities and colleges for the steps they have taken. I believe that they have taken those steps, at least in their minds, in the best interest of their institution and the best interest of the students at the institution, given the decline in funding.
It is a difficult situation crossing idealism and realism to cope with significant federal funding cuts. If an institution does not react or respond to a funding cutback, and quality and autonomy suffer a result of that funding cutback, it will be more difficult to recuperate that funding in the future.
I point those things out because they are not desirable in the EDUCATION system, and were there adequate funding, our institutions would not be moving in those directions. Post-secondary institutions have been implementing more and more efficiencies, more than any other sector. At this point, rather than finding efficiencies, what universities are doing is finding -- I do not even know if there is a term for it, because "efficiency" implies that by doing "this" you are better able to do "this." Some of what is being done now is that by doing some of "this," you are not better able to do anything.
It is a difficult choice. You have said that the funding will not increase. I am optimistic that it will, and I will remain optimistic that it will, though obviously there is good reason to believe that it will not from the federal government. We also intend to keep pressure on our provincial governments to provide additional funding to make up the loss, as was done in British Columbia.
The University of Toronto Board of Governors office has been occupied by students since yesterday and the York University Board of Governors and President's Office was taken over today by students. Ontario is really feeling the impact of cuts by the Ontario government. The government has essentially passed them on directly, and where that has happened the impacts are much more significant.
In B.C., we are seeing the move to find efficiencies because the province has, in large part, made up that funding loss. The President of the University of Victoria often talked about the Balkanization of the EDUCATION system in Canada; that there will be provinces with a good, accessible system and there will be the have-not provinces. That is inevitably a consequence of declining funding, because there are provinces that have the ability to raise the revenue to make up for the loss in federal dollars and there are provinces that do not.
I understand your argument and your points. We are in a difficult time.
Senator Andreychuk: Is British Columbia different because of a freeze in student tuition? Your government indicated that it did not have the budget and then very recently put out a budget forecast that is now dramatically changing. It will be interesting to see whether their answers in EDUCATION and health will continue to be the same as they were in the past. Why has the students' lobby, despite the traditional sit-ins in the president's office, not had the effect on the Canadian public to bring the EDUCATION issue to the same level as some other issues? The one we always point out is health.
Mr. Gardiner: I think we have. We did some polling well in advance of the provincial election in British Columbia last year. In November of 1995, we did the polling and we found tremendous concern. Nearly 80 per cent of those polled were concerned about the impact of federal cuts to Post-Secondary education. Throughout the provincial election, polling showed that for 26 per cent of people polled, the deficit was their primary concern; for 25 per cent of those polled, health was the issue; and for 24 per cent, it was EDUCATION. When the statistics are taken one step further, it is found that of those who said health, their number two concern is EDUCATION; of those who said EDUCATION, their number two concern is health; number three concern is jobs; number four is something else; and their number five or six concern is deficit.
While a number of first choices was the deficit, there is not necessarily a majority of Canadians who say that the deficit is the key issue. It is important to look at people's first, second and third choices, in terms of what are the issues of the day, not their first choice alone.
The Chairman: I wishes to thank you, Michael, for an excellent paper. It shows that you have a great interest in EDUCATION and funding. I would suggest that you keep in touch with my friend, Mr. Van Raalte, who was on the student union of his university at one time and had the same persistence as you have here in this student union. He sees everything your way and he pushes issues pretty strongly. If you keep in touch with him, he will make sure the committee hears more from you.
The committee adjourned.