The Conservatives have again shown their true stripe to Canadians, when they work toward making First Nations people pay for the education guaranteed in Treaties that ensured a peaceful welcome to European (and other) immigrants to Canada. Their latest outrage is an attempt to have loans rather than grants given to young First Nations people who attend university or colleges.
Reading in the Winnipeg Free Press this morning, I learned that more than 10,000 Aboriginal people (since 1996) have been turned down for post-secondary education grants, on the basis that there is not enough funding. The federal government’s absurd position is that the money given to bands for distribution have been spent on other items. The bands don’t deny this, because they spent the money on emergency housing expenses! Given the lack of clean water (a human right), and decent housing on many First Nation reservations, I think it’s criminal that the federal government denies its responsibility (in black and white in the Treaties) to provide education and housing as requested to do so.
The government also claims, when people get tired of its first excuses, that “post secondary” education is not what was bargained for in the Treaties. They think their obligation is over after secondary school education. Perhaps a legal expert, who has studied historic treaties would be able to say if that’s the case or not. I think it’s obvious that if it’s so easy to get out of responsibility to provide “education” by claiming so called “post-secondary education” is no longer “education”, then the government could save MILLIONS (maybe billions) of dollars by renaming “education” to “learning” which isn’t covered by the Treaties. Then stop paying for high school for Aboriginal children.
Seriously though, if the governments across Canada were serious about engaging First Nations people in the workforce, they would be jumping at the chance to get more people through university. Brad Wall in Saskatchewan mentions he wants to see a lot of jobs created for Aboriginals, but I haven’t heard him get specific. It’s as if he wants simply to say something that sounds positive, while he intends to do nothing to make it happen. In one respect you can hardly blame him, since while education is a provincial responsibility, Treaties are an agreement with the federal government. Usually premiers are eager to use legal means to pry money from Ottawa, but so far Wall has balked.
The following is a portion from a UofS report that explains why the Conservatives’ plan is a continuation of Canadian failed, and illegal policy.
III. Failure of Education
Federal government agreements made with the provinces to provide schools and other educational services violated treaty rights to education as the treaties were for schools to be built in their communities and for their purposes, not for assimilation. Despite the federal government’s fiduciary duty to provide education that advanced the treaty relationship, the federal government has persistently passed on its duty to whomever wanted that task and have not taken seriously their own role in developing educational capacity. At the beginning of their enacted policies involving Indian education, federal government gave to churches responsibility for education of First Nations children, later they enlisted the provincial governments’ schools, and then they agreed to allow First Nations educational authorities to provide administration of schools. While much money and work have been focused on First Nations education in the last century, contemporary schools have not corrected or confronted the lessons of the residential schools and the residual negative stereotypes of First Nations people.
One thing is clear to me, and that is that unilateral policy dictation will not solve these problems in education delivery. However, Conservatives seem keen on repeating that mistake of the past.
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The text of an actual treaty, I found difficult to find on the Internet. Here is one source of Treaty 5, “Her Majesty agrees to maintain schools for instruction” [...] “whenever the Indians of the reserve shall desire it.”
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Greyseeker | 28-Dec-08 at 11:38 pm | Permalink
If aboriginal people want post-secondary education ‘delivered’ they can get it the same way I did. Work 5 evenings a week and both days on weekends to pay for it and support myself because my family was poor and couldn’t afford to send me.
Saskboy | 29-Dec-08 at 11:29 am | Permalink
That was the sentiment expressed by a few respondents to the Win FP article. A better response I think was one that pointed out many countries offer free post secondary education to ALL people, so instead of trying to drag Aboriginal people down to the poorer level the Rest of us Canadians experience, why not use this moment as an opportunity to swing things 180 degrees and make education free for all Canadians. Then you don’t unilaterally take away the rights guaranteed in Treaties, and you also make all Canadians equal, so it’s an ideal solution.
Although, someone else had another solution. If the Conservatives want to renegotiate the Treaties, perhaps First Nations would gladly give up their right to free education, in return of all resource revenue. Makes sense, that there is give and take in a negotiation? The Conservatives are eager to see Constitutional changes in regard to the Senate anyway, might as well rearrange a bit more while at it.
Jeff | 29-Dec-08 at 12:28 pm | Permalink
Please explain to me where in any treaty it guarantees that the government will pay for “post secondary education”. Please quote which treaty and where it can be found. I had to work for mine. Why do they get special treatment?
If everyone gets free university who pays for it? Please also list the countries that have free post secondary education.
Saskboy | 29-Dec-08 at 1:01 pm | Permalink
Sure Jeff.
http://www.cbc.ca/news/background/higher-education/studentloans.html
I’ll get an example from a Saskatchewan Treaty later on for you too. I showed it to Louise once too, who was in as much disbelief. Essentially they aren’t getting “special treatment”, not how you probably understand it anyway. It’s a negotiated right that is in black and white on a treaty agreement. They gave up a lot of resource revenues to Canada, which has assigned those rights to provinces, and indirectly get them through the Federal government instead.
Dwight Williams | 29-Dec-08 at 8:41 pm | Permalink
Do you suppose living up to treaty obligations – as required by the Constitution – would go over better if the First Nations had proper UN General Assembly seats? We could then bill the treaties as international trade and technology transfer agreements. Which, in a real sense, they are.
I still don’t hold with the people complaining about living up to our obligations equalling “special treatment”.
Greyseeker | 29-Dec-08 at 10:44 pm | Permalink
Actually I completely agree. I was active in Student Government at the U. of S. as USSU VP and I completely believe that PSE should be essentially free to those who are prepared to go and succeed at it…
Australia for one does…
Saskboy | 29-Dec-08 at 11:46 pm | Permalink
I’ve ranted about education before, obviously…
http://www.abandonedstuff.com/2008/02/25/saskboy-on-cross-country-checkup-with-rex-murphy/
But I’m having trouble googling a treaty for its actual text as a demonstration. I know I’ve done it once successfully, and will do it again soon, I just need more time.
Saskboy | 29-Dec-08 at 11:58 pm | Permalink
“I argue in this article that the First Nation representatives who negotiated
the numbered treaties had an understanding of formal education and
expected their members and future generations to benefit from such
services. Formal education would enable First Nation communities to
supplement traditional educational practices with western teaching so they
could “live and prosper and provide” (Morris, 1991/1880, p. 28). The
Crown, however, did not fulfil its constitutional obligations and, from the
outset, chose to provide limited educational services not as a treaty right,
but as an assimilationist mechanism through its own criteria, the Indian
Act.”
http://www.csse.ca/CJE/Articles/FullText/CJE26-2/CJE26-2-Carr.pdf
and…
“In the late 1880s, Canada provided limited financial assistance
to religious entities towards the establishment of Industrial schools and
later Residential schools. These buildings, however, were usually located
on isolated areas of the reserve or off-reserve. Such schools not only denied
First Nations input into the schools but ignored the treaty commitment
that schools would be constructed on reserve whenever First Nations
desired.”
Still looking for the actual text.
Saskboy | 30-Dec-08 at 12:58 am | Permalink
Found it, and included it in the post. You can find the text for any treaty through here:
http://www.canadiana.org/citm/themes/aboriginals/aboriginals7_e.html
It’s in black and white, The Queen is to provide schools for instruction, on reserve land no less, any time Indians request a school. We’re actually getting a bargain that means if we can send them to an existing education facility off reserve land. And if a treaty Indian then gets a job off reserve land, we gain a tax payer too. Brad Wall and the federal government talk about engaging a growing Aboriginal population in our workforce, so it certainly is part of government rhetoric to say that educating more First Nations people is a government priority and is certainly advisable.
Tania fox | 01-Feb-09 at 11:47 pm | Permalink
As for the so called ‘free ride’ the First Nations people are getting in terms of post-secondary…not free, our Grandmothers and Grandfathers paid dearly for this ’special treatment’. If you call cultural assimilation and religious indoctrination free, then I guess we’re no further ahead then we were 60 years ago.
Saskboy | 02-Feb-09 at 5:38 pm | Permalink
That’s right Tania, the “free ride” as you put it, wasn’t free. Treaty rights for First Nations people are what they have in exchange for losing their land (and in many cases their right to practice their culture).