Indigenous and Northern Affairs Committee on March 8th, 2023

[Blaire Gould, Executive Director, Mi'kmaw Kina'matnewey]

Good evening, everyone. My name is Blaire Gould. I'm the executive director for Mi'kmaw Kina'matnewey, or MK for short.

I had hoped to witness in person; however, I am here at our annual symposium today and tomorrow, sharing and witnessing the efforts and excellence in each and every community, celebrating them and planning with them.

As MK, we actively engage our communities by customizing service delivery models that best fit their needs and aspirations.

I am a product of Mi'kmaw Kina'matnewey. I went to school in my community of Eskasoni from kindergarten to grade 12, and even had some post-secondary opportunities. I did not learn English until I was in grade three. At that time, I had my first non-indigenous teacher. For most of my schooling, I was taught by Mi'kmaq educators.

Today, I am the executive director for Mi'kmaw Kina'matnewey. Just 25 years ago, discussions at our leadership table involved a vision for children like me. They would have an opportunity to succeed and would be destined to become leaders. As I sit here, I often reflect that I am very grateful for those decision-makers who made decisions for children like me. Now today I have the honour and privilege of working with them to reflect on where we come from and the new direction we are shaping—informed by data and informed by our leaders in education.

Mi'kmaw Kina'matnewey has been in existence since 1997. The journey started in 1992. During that time period, our graduation rates have drastically improved from 20% to 90%. The 90% is consistent and has been for about a decade, maybe more.

We are the leaders in indigenous education. We walk that path with great respect, responsibility and humility. What has continued to evolve for us over the last two decades is our commitment to and passion for education. We set the bar higher for ourselves. We work to achieve those desires, those visions and those goals.

We are innovative. We truly believe that the key to our success is that we work collectively to promote excellence in Mi'kmaq education. Our model supports communities as they exercise jurisdiction in education to educate the youth according to their values and customs. We offer guidance to our communities across many areas, such as academics, healthy living and language and culture, but their autonomy has allowed them to shape and deliver programming that would otherwise be missed if we mandated a one-size-fits-all model.

Even though our communities have jurisdiction over their own education, our leadership is committed to working together. The chiefs from each of our communities make collective decisions about important matters such as finances and capital infrastructure. They have made those hard decisions and sacrificed additions to their own communities for years to help other communities that may be in pursuit of exercising their jurisdiction within their own community so that they can have an opportunity to build. They support each other, knowing that what they do is for the betterment of the nation. It seems to work for us.

Our student attainments and achievements in elementary and secondary—not just in academia but strongly rooted in their identity—translate into great success in post-secondary education. We have high, excellent rates in post-secondary and their achievements continue on.

We are not here to say that everything is perfect. We struggle, as do most, but we want to reinforce that working together, for us, has certainly rewarded us in many great ways. We wanted to share a little bit of our journey.

We continue to stand together as a united front and we encourage every community, learner and teacher to reach for their goals and to show the world what we can do when we work together.

Wela'lioq.

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Jamie Schmale]

Thank you very much to our witnesses for all of their testimony today. Everyone was under time today, so that is a great start.

I'd like to welcome also to the committee Shelby Kramp-Neuman, my geographical neighbour. We won't put her on the hot seat yet to start questions, but we will open up with the Conservative round. Six minutes goes to Bob Zimmer.

[Bob Zimmer, Conservative, Prince George—Peace River—Northern Rockies, BC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I just want to thank the witnesses for appearing, especially Dr. Cook at the end. We had a little incident coming in and I tried to race her up the stairs but anyway, I'll leave it there.

Thanks for appearing today. I sure appreciate your experience too as a physician travelling around and serving our northern communities and our communities at large, and I just thank you for that.

With my questions I'll start off with Kelsey Wrightson from Dechinta Centre.

I'm a former teacher in northern B.C. I taught trades even though I had two degrees. Actually I have my Red Seal and I have two degrees in other things and really found I was right in the middle of seeing the value of both sides of education, whether it be in a degree aspect or a trade.

Kelsey, I see that in your programs—I'm looking at your website right now—you have some very innovative ways to relate to students in northern communities. I was wanting to know your levels of success. You've talked a little bit about that already, but do you see them making the jump over to these other professions that are going to be needed, whether it's being a carpenter like I was or getting my degree in education as well?

Do you see these kinds of innovative ways helping with those aspects of education, really helping students get to where they need to go?

[Dr. Kelsey Wrightson]

I'll start by saying that in our programming our success rate in getting students to complete programming is close to 98%. In the last five years, we've only had two students unable to complete their programs, and they're actually coming back this upcoming semester to complete their programs.

I think you're right. What we are aiming to do is to reach out and reach the students who might not see themselves in education, who might not see themselves in different kinds of career paths, and demonstrate that not only do they have the skills and knowledge, but they can actually achieve the diverse kinds of employment and educational outcomes they might need.

In our follow-ups with alumni, we've seen a lot of folks take on really diverse employment opportunities. We have a number of folks going to post-secondary, and we've had a number of folks working within their communities. What we really see is that addition to programming helps them to reconnect to themselves, reconnect to their land and community, and sets them up for success in whatever pathway they choose to take next.

[Bob Zimmer, Conservative, Prince George—Peace River—Northern Rockies, BC]

I commend you for your success rate. The one thing we have talked to different panel presenters in this committee about, and it's the reason why we're studying this, is the very low graduation rate, and we want to see that improve. We had the ministry here a few days ago, which seems to just want to endlessly study the issue instead of actually doing something about it. I would just challenge the ministry to reach out to folks like you, Kelsey. It seems you have a good grasp of how to get kids past the finish line and beyond into a positive career post-secondary.

I'll move on to Dr. Cook.

Again, I really appreciate what you've done in the north. Maybe on a similar topic, similar to what I was asking Kelsey, how do you see that we can address this low graduation rate in ways that really work? I've been up to Nunavut, Northwest Territories and Yukon, and a big part of the problem, even if you're going to be a tradesperson, let's say, is that you have to leave your community and go thousands of kilometres away somewhere else, distant from your very close family, which you've been a part of all your life, to go get trained and then come back. Some don't want to make that jump. Is that part of being trained in communities up there? Is it that?

How do we see that success rate get better, Dr. Cook?

[Dr. Catherine Cook]

I think it's different for everyone. We certainly have been working with our communities, particularly through these learning hubs.

I'm coming at this specifically from a post-secondary perspective. We have the privilege of having a collective of all of our post-secondaries working together in Manitoba, so we've been able to promote what is important to the youth and their communities.

When you talk about the trades, we haven't traditionally supported students going into the trades. It's been almost always a focus on university. When we're talking with a community and really working with them to look at what their priorities are, it can be a whole continuum of things. Sometimes for these kids, just showing up in a program is success. We need to honour that and celebrate that with them.

One of the challenges with trades as well is that we have young people who want to go into the trades, but they don't have a place to apprentice in their own communities all the time. Collectively we could come together and come up with some ideas about how that could be accomplished with partnerships with the communities and with industry. What does it look like to be successful? How are the graduates...?

If people know there's a pathway, the intent to stay on track, come back and get your program success rate, even if you left, is more accessible and more likely to occur.

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Jamie Schmale]

Thank you very much.

That was six minutes. I appreciate the question-and-answer period.

We will now go to the Liberal party. We have Michael McLeod for six minutes.

[Michael McLeod, Liberal, Northwest Territories, NT]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you to the witnesses for presenting today. It's very interesting to hear your presentations.

My question is for Kelsey from Dechinta in the Northwest Territories.

Kelsey, I think you've heard—and I've certainly heard as I've travelled to the communities—how leaders talk about education as a way forward for our people, for the indigenous people and for the young people who are growing up in the communities. However, many parents and grandparents have expressed concern many times because, when the student is going to move to post-secondary, it means that they're leaving their culture behind. A lot of times it means that they're going to be moving away from their families.

Often in the northern indigenous communities, our youth travel to the cities in the south to go to post-secondary institutions. Many times they end up staying there because there is a lack of opportunity in or a growing sense of disconnection with their home communities.

I want to ask if you could speak to how ensuring that northern and indigenous students having post-secondary opportunities closer to home can lead to better outcomes for both students and their communities.

[Dr. Kelsey Wrightson]

Mahsi cho. Thank you so much for that question.

It really raises a lot of things that we have heard over and over again from students, from parents and from elders, the concern of people moving away, of losing their connection to family and also students not wanting to leave their communities and not wanting to leave the supports they have.

That's part of the reason our programming is designed to be so mobile. It's designed to be delivered in communities where we can go and hear from community leadership, hear from community members and hear from students about what their priorities are. Then we deliver programming in a strength-based way that allows people to stay in their homes and to be surrounded by the incredible wealth of knowledge that is their community and their land.

This not only supports the success of students in being able to achieve those educational outcomes, but it also supports the whole community in re-establishing a new relationship to what education can be. It can mean a reinvestment, a recommitment, a revitalization of their knowledge and a revitalization of the relationships they have with each other and with the land.

The other important thing is that this knowledge economy creates incredible employment opportunities. In the last three years, Dechinta has been able to hire over 60 people in northern communities to do meaningful work that allows them to connect and reconnect to their families and their homelands and keep themselves really well.

Mahsi cho.

[Michael McLeod, Liberal, Northwest Territories, NT]

My next question is about funding. If Dechinta is able to secure longer-term funding, what will that sense of security enable your organization to accomplish?

[Dr. Kelsey Wrightson]

Long-term funding, I think we've heard many times, is so important to being able to establish stable long-term relationships with the communities we're working in. What we have been able to do since the first commitment of funding, our first long-term funding agreement with the federal government, is to actually say to communities and say to students, “We will be here for the next five years, so you can plan on our being able to provide employment opportunities. You can plan on our being able to support your education. If you're 16, we'll be here when you're ready to go to university. We'll provide those steps and those pathways.” That is so fundamental to being able to actually provide the real foundation of what community-based and community codeveloped programming is, which is the strong relationships that are necessary to make it happen.

[Michael McLeod, Liberal, Northwest Territories, NT]

My last question is about some of the comments we hear. A lot of students who have to go to post-secondary institutions in the south are essentially turning their backs on being indigenous because they don't have opportunities to practise their culture. They have to move away from their families.

At the same time, we see Dechinta, which is an educational institution, building sod huts, sod houses, which hasn't been done for a long time in our history. Can you just talk about how you can do it, then, and what attraction that has for your students?

[Dr. Kelsey Wrightson]

It's just that I learn...and I see this in my colleagues every day and the students every day. I hear in the words of our students reflecting on the programs that being able to connect to their community and their culture is so empowering and completely transforms how they see themselves and the confidence they have.

We have students who are learning how to tan hides for the first time, and remembering what it was like when they were at their grandmother's feet, watching them practise hide tanning. I think that really provides the really important foundation for not only cultural revitalization but also building incredibly strong communities and continuing to pass that knowledge on to the next generation.

When we have our harvesters out on the land, bringing food into the communities, you can see the pride they have, the pride in their ability to share their knowledge and share their skills. Having that reflected back and celebrated by the elders, whom they respect, is an incredible thing to witness.

[Michael McLeod, Liberal, Northwest Territories, NT]

Thank you.

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Jamie Schmale]

Thank you very much, Mr. McLeod, for your questions. That was six minutes.

We now go to the Bloc Québécois, Madam Gill, for six minutes.

Go ahead, please.

[Marilène Gill, Bloc, Manicouagan, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I would also like to thank all the witnesses—Ms. Wrightson, Ms. Gould and Dr. Cook—for being here.

Over the past few meetings, we have talked about women. By the way, I wish you a happy International Women's Day. We know how much of an indigenous component there is and that much needs to be done for indigenous women. I imagine that there may be a difference between the education of men and that of women in the communities, at least in terms of the difficulties to which they are exposed. You can tell me if I'm wrong.

As a teacher myself, I saw a lot of indigenous women in the classroom, but they had particular challenges. I was wondering if certain solutions could be adopted, whatever they may be, to be able to remedy this situation and make sure that women could continue their education and eventually enter the workforce. We could take a snapshot of men and women to see if there are things that would help improve success rates.

Dr. Cook, I would like to hear from you.

Afterwards, I would like to hear from Ms. Wrightson and Ms. Gould.

Thank you.

[Dr. Catherine Cook]

Thank you very much for the question. It's really an interesting question. We find in our institutions or organizations that we tend to have more indigenous women than men seeking post-secondary education. I think part of that could have to do with the traditional roles in community that men assume. It's a challenge for both young women and young men. Frequently it is easier for the women to achieve more supports through family, I believe. Certainly, we've had many examples of women who end up becoming the matriarchs of the family, as you would expect, achieve a post-secondary education and support the children and the family with the support of their partner. Most important in all of this is the support of community and family.

I don't really have anything more to add at this point, but it's very much a familial support network that is so critical to success for women and men.

Thank you.

[Dr. Kelsey Wrightson]

I'd like to echo that. The support of community is so important. In our last three years, 94% of the graduates from our programs were actually women. That, I think, is a result of the kinds of programming—barrier-reducing programming—decisions we made, which were to include families in all of our programs. If a student is admitted to a program, they're welcome to bring their whole family to attend alongside of them, but it also means listening to students and making sure we're creating programming that meets their needs. We do a really comprehensive intake and make sure we're reaching folks of all genders and creating programming that's going to be meaningful for them.

[Blaire Gould]

Thank you for your question.

We have achieved an attendance rate of about 82% over the last decade and a half, I would say. That has been a stable indicator for us and a credit to the successes that we see. A lot of our focus on boys and girls in elementary is attendance. We know that if they attend school regularly, their chances of success in middle school, junior high, secondary and into post-secondary are greater. We cannot stress enough and emphasize enough the importance of attendance in all years, but especially in elementary.

We create a lot of opportunities—targeted opportunities, I would call them. We have cohorts to create.... Just recently and currently, there's a desire to have more early childhood educators, as it's a huge need in our communities. We design and create the cohorts with our partners. Certainly for us here in Nova Scotia, we have great working relationships with the institutions, the Nova Scotia community colleges. We redesign programs that they have already offered, giving them a Mi’kmaq focus and ensuring that the program delivery is appropriate to what we desire.

We do a lot of specific programming targeting girls in trade, for example, where we want to see more girls in trade. We do a lot of specific initiatives around wellness. One of the more successful ones that we have heightened a little bit more is boys and wellness. It is just as important for boys to be able to be in a safe space to talk about their well-being as well.

Certainly, for us wellness is a priority just all around the map. COVID has certainly opened a lot of gaps that we are seeing and triaging at this time, but I think we would be a little bit not focused if we didn't engage community. In every effort, starting as early as grade 5, we engage parents in their attainment, because parents play a critical role in the future of their children's education. They are likely the decision-makers for where their children will go, be it trades or be it university. We engage parents in a “try a trade” model, where they accompany their children to see the benefits of working in trades, for example. We have trades halls and apprenticeship halls and other things that we can access.

Then there's transition and a lot of opportunities as well for secondary students and middle school students in university attainment. We have created a lot of pathways. Those pathway themes are in education, health, entrepreneurship, business and STEM. We create all of these opportunities so that if you want to become a plumber, we have a pathway created for you. If you want to become a veterinarian, we have a pathway for you. Children know early on that the choices they make in junior high and high school will elevate them into the pathways they see themselves in.

We certainly encourage a lot of efforts by both our communities and our parents especially, because students are students but the parents are the boss, especially in Mi’kmaq territory.

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Jamie Schmale]

Thank you very much, Ms. Gould.

Thank you, Ms. Gill. We did go a bit over time.

We will now go to the NDP.

Lori Idlout, you have six minutes.

[Lori Idlout, NDP, Nunavut, NU]

[Member spoke in Inuktitut, interpreted as follows:]

Thank you, Chairperson. I thank all of the witnesses who have come here to share their progress. Although I speak mainly in my language, I will be asking my questions in English so they will be clearer. I'm thankful that we have interpreters, but I will be speaking in English. Thank you.

[English]

My questions will be to Blaire Gould.

I want to share briefly my life history. Just so you know, it might need to have a trigger warning. My dad died by suicide when I was about six or seven years old. Because of that, I was raised in the foster care system, and because of the foster care system, I grew up in several different communities. In all of these different communities, I went to several different schools.

My story is very common when it comes to indigenous peoples' history. We have very inconsistent education. We don't have regular teachers. A lot of the times, we don't have consistent care. Despite that history, to get back to who I am, I was able to complete my grade 12. I was able to get my undergraduate degree, and I was able to go to law school and become a lawyer. I think part of the reason I am who I am today is that my education included teachings from elders, from teachers—always elders and teachers—and all of my foster parents telling me how important it was to have coping skills to know how to survive.

Blaire, you touched a little bit in your presentation on pathways. I'm very struck by the success that you had at MK, and I think MK really needs to be modelled by many more jurisdictions. I wonder if you could share more about how you're able to use the strengths of the Mi'kmaq to make sure that you have success with your students.

[Blaire Gould]

Thank you.

Absolutely, and thank you for sharing your story on the loss of your dad.

Just to touch a little bit on the foster system, one of the greatest things about having jurisdiction over education is the ability to create the partnerships that we desire, that we want. It's an elevated voice, especially in this province. I talk often about the relationships that we have with government despite whatever party is in leadership. That has never faltered. The relationships have stayed the same for us. It is because we have such an elevated status, so to speak, around jurisdiction, and that autonomy is greatly recognized here.

One of the things that I will mention is that, in those partnerships, we have a sectoral self-government agreement here in education, but a lot of the sectoral agreements and models currently in social work, in social in general, and health transformation are springing up here. It's not an anomaly kind of thing, but it's a testament I think to our unity at the end of the day. We have a very low rate of child apprehension here. A lot of it is kinship placement. With children we don't see a lot of instances of their being moved home to home or community to community. Also, we work closely with the child and family services based in the Mi'kmaq community to ensure that the child is the centre. It's very child centre focused. It's very holistic when it comes to the transitioning of programming and the transitioning of care perhaps from parents to kinship.

One of the things for us also, just to hit some of the points you talked about, is that elders in residence is something that we greatly promote, not just in elementary and secondary education but also in universities. This is something that the province has modelled after us. Elders in residence is something that is quite accessible here in any institution where there are students who are Mi'kmaq.

We really also emphasize the community presence in our schools. Every community does it differently, but it is a common priority amongst communities that the community must be present in the school. That means elders, parents, community people, fishers, trappers, all of these folks are part of the curricula in designed ways that are unique to them.

Speaking about the pathways, right now in post-secondary we're on a pathway of our own vision to create our own accredited institution. It may not be a physical institution in these early phases, but it is something that we're actively seeking. We have a lot of Mi'kmaq care, a duty and care, that we feel toward our students in these areas. Those pathways are, just to name a few.... In health, there are things like the LPNs, RNs, CAs and doctors. In education it's administrators, teacher aides, EAs and the teachers themselves. There are social entrepreneurs, businesses, trades and human services and STEM. A lot of the service industry, because our desire is not—

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Jamie Schmale]

Ms. Gould, I'm sorry to interrupt, but we're way over time and our meeting is growing tight. We do have a quick abbreviated round if the committee is okay with two minutes each. I see thumbs up all around. It's two minutes and each party will get a round.

Mr. Vidal for two minutes.

[Gary Vidal, Conservative, Desnethé—Missinippi—Churchill River, SK]

Thank you, Chair.

I'm making my question really brief because of time.

I want to thank you, Ms. Gould, for bringing up the matter of attendance in your comments a few minutes ago. My question is actually really quick. It's my opinion in talking to some people recently that increased attendance leads to increased reading rates, which leads to increased or better outcomes, which would ultimately lead to better graduation rates.

For my question maybe I'll start with Ms. Gould and then go to Ms. Wrightson and Dr. Cook. If she wants to answer the question as well that's great.

Do you measure, do you track, attendance rates? Do you actually measure that against outcomes? I want you to comment on why you believe that's really important, as you do obviously.

[Blaire Gould]

Very quickly, to answer your question, yes we do. We follow and analyze cohorts as they come in. It is not uncommon for us to look at a cohort in grade 1, for example, and again in grade 5 and grade 7, just to see and compare where those kids are at. We believe attendance leads to attainment, which leads to success overall. This is something that we consistently look in on.

We weren't always at an 82% average, as well. COVID has impacted that a little bit. We're building and strengthening those systems and policies back up. As you know—I'm testament to that, I guess—you don't need to be there to be present. It's something that we have to evolve. Our students are just getting smarter and savvier.

For us, absolutely we look at data as a way to inform every next step that we take. We're very proud of the Mi'kmaw Kina'matnewey student information system, which is a customized system developed by Mi'kmaq.

Thank you.