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November 24, 2011

First Nations protections symbolic but important


People living on First Nations reserves will have the same human rights protection as other Canadians beginning this weekend, when they will come under the umbrella of the Canadian Human Rights Act for the first time. Previously, the act — which prevents discrimination on grounds of race, religion or gender — did not apply to the Indian Act, the archaic legislation that still governs much of life on reserves.
The impact of its extension to cover First Nations is likely to be more symbolic than practical. But it is another step on what Aboriginal Affairs Minister John Duncan calls his government’s “reconciliation agenda,” which also included the residential school apology and the establishment of a Truth and Reconciliation Commission, which is investigating human rights abuses in the residential schools.
“It has made a difference — many people said it changed everything, so that they could put past grievances behind them and make them more willing to embrace working collaboratively,” he said in an interview in his Parliament Hill office. “I think there has been a positive cultural change in First Nations’ leadership and a cultural change in Ottawa too.”
There does appear to have been a shift from the old hardline approach, when aboriginal leaders made demands they knew could never be met and governments pretended to listen. Mr. Duncan and Shawn Atleo, National Chief of the Assembly of First Nations, announced a joint action plan last week aimed at making progress on education, governance, economic development and treaty negotiation.
The problem is that progress, like tomorrow, never comes. The Auditor-General’s report about programs on First Nations’ reserves, released last week, concluded that conditions have not improved much in the last decade. “The education gap between First Nations living on reserves and the general Canadian population has widened [and] the shortage of adequate housing on reserves has increased,” the report said.
The most damning statistic in the cycle of failure is the graduation rate of high school students, which is stuck at around 41% for aboriginal students, compared to 77% for Canadians as a whole. In 2004, the Auditor-General estimated it would take 28 years for First Nations communities to reach the national average and close the education gap. Last week, Sheila Fraser suggested more recent trends indicated the time needed will be even longer.
Simple demographics suggest that the status quo is untenable. According to Statistics Canada, the number of senior citizens will more than double in the next 20 years, with dramatic consequences for tax revenues (lower), social costs (much higher) and the labour market (shortages of skilled workers). At the same time, the aboriginal population is growing five times faster than the rest of the Canadian population and has an average age of 22, compared to 36 for the rest of Canada. There is a real prospect of an army of angry, unemployed and under-educated native youths milling around Canadian cities, at the same time as the economy is hit with labour shortages.
Roberta Jamieson, the well respected president of the National Aboriginal Achievement Foundation, which provides support to native post-secondary education students, said First Nations children are not leaving school before graduation because they don’t think education is important. “These kids want a future, they don’t want to be sitting on welfare.”
She cited NAAF research that suggests drugs and alcohol, gangs, bullying and a lack of motivation play key roles. But she said there have been some successes keeping kids in school — eLearning programs, aboriginal immersion schools and the involvement of elders.
“There are lots of shiny objects out there being marketed but we have to use methods that are proven to work and invest wisely,” she said.“The days are gone when the government could create a solution in Ottawa and take it to the hinterland. That has produced decades of failure.”
Mr. Duncan appears to agree with this sentiment, which makes it all the more puzzling why one of the more successful native education pilot projects in the country now finds itself short of funding. The First Nations Education Steering Committee in B.C. was commended by the Auditor-General as the way forward for aboriginal education in Canada. Since the Conservatives came to power in 2006, they have complained that they are merely funding agents for the 500 or so band schools that operate without any educational or financial accountability.
Band chiefs have resisted attempts for more direct control from Ottawa, especially when it comes to questions about whether the money intended for education is even being spent on kids (First Nations educators say in many cases, it is not).
But in B.C., FNESC has offered a solution, bringing together a number of band schools with the intention of acting like a provincial school board by defining the quality of education, classroom sizes, curriculum and teaching certificate requirements. It has attempted to introduce standards on a par with provincial schools in the 14 largest band schools in the province, with some success (the graduation rate is now over 50%, up from 36% in 1998). The goal is to achieve funding levels on a par with provincial schools. Making exact comparisons is difficult but everyone, including Mr. Duncan, agrees a funding gap exists, with some estimates suggesting it may be as high as $3,000 per student in provinces like Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Alberta.
Yet despite its successes, FNESC now finds itself in a funding dispute with the Aboriginal Affairs department, which wants to retain an oversight capacity, and has presented a funding plan that is absent money for language and culture programs. “We want kids to know who they are and where they belong. We’re appalled by that decision,” said Christa Williams, negotiator for the FNESC. “We just want our students to be treated like any other student in B.C. But we’ve been told if we don’t agree they will go to another region.”
Of course, you can’t always get what you want and the taxpayer should not be treated like an ATM by First Nations. But the B.C. project appears to fulfill Ms. Jamieson’s criteria for programs with a proven track record. She said that many Canadians look at Canada’s native reserves and think the situation is hopeless. “But there is a way out and it is achieveable in our lifetime,” she said.
The benefits to the Canadian economy of closing the education gap over 15 years would amount to savings of $115-billion, according to the Centre for the Study of Living Standards, and an addition of over $400-billion to the country’s GDP. For those who say Canada can’t afford more spending on aboriginal education, the clear answer is we can’t afford not to.

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