Indigenous and Northern Affairs Committee on Sept. 26th, 2006

[The Chair, Conservative, Colin Mayes]

I call to order this meeting of the Standing Committee on Aboriginal Affairs and Northern Development, September 26, 2006.

Here are the orders of the day. We have two witnesses today. From the University of Winnipeg, we have Mary Young, director of the Aboriginal Student Services Centre. Welcome. Also, from the B.C. First Nations Leadership Council, we have Nathan Matthew, senior advisor and negotiator for education. We thank you for being here and on quite short notice. We really do appreciate the effort.

We're going to proceed with two presentations of around 10 minutes each, and then I'll ask committee members to question you on issues related to post-secondary education, until the end of the meeting at 11.

We do have a translator, so you're going to receive some questions, I'm sure, in French. We'll make sure you're hooked up.

Mary Young, would you like to begin, please?

[Mary Young, Director, Aboriginal Students Services Centre, University of Winnipeg]

Bonjour. [Witness speaks in her native language.]

I think I need another PhD to figure out the technical system.

I say meegwetch for inviting me to come and speak this morning.

I have been at the university for 22 years, so I think I might know what I'm going to talk about today. One of the major things that needs to change with post-secondary education is the money the students get. They still get $675 a month to live on. I tried to live on that in 1973. Métis students have absolutely no funding. Many of them just get student loans, and you know what that means, how much they owe when they leave.

Accessing post-secondary education is a major feat. It begins much earlier. How many aboriginal students graduate from high school? If you don't graduate from high school, you can't access post-secondary education. We have trouble with turnover of teachers in first nations communities. We are still asked to give up our identity. We are still asked to be assimilated into mainstream society. Language, place, culture are the most important gifts that we were given by the Great Spirit, and we need those to be able to get through high school and post-secondary education.

When students come to the cities, they can't get appropriate housing. They have to rent apartments in areas where it's not safe to live or study. I haven't seen much change in terms of when I applied for an apartment and I was told to my face that I wouldn't be rented that room because I was aboriginal. I worked by myself advising, counselling, recruiting, liaising with communities for 16 years at the University of Winnipeg. When I went away, there was no one in my office. How could I go out and recruit other students and say to them, “These are the services available for aboriginal students”, when nobody was there?

Today we have a beautiful centre. That centre is a home away from home for many students. If we didn't have that centre we would lose many aboriginal students, because they don't stay. They have to have a connection to the university; they have to have a connection with the staff and faculty. We still struggle with alienation. We still struggle with a sense of belonging. We still struggle with fear of failure. Those were the feelings of separation that I talked about in my master's thesis. Those are very real issues. If we can't handle those things, we will not graduate from university.

I come before you as Anishinabekwe. I come before you as the daughter of my mother, Isabelle, and my father, Charlie. I also sit here representing the University of Winnipeg. I have learned to balance those two kinds of education. If I do not respect my father's teachings and my mother's teachings, and her personality and who she was, then I shouldn't be sitting here. When we talk about students in post-secondary education, we need to remember who they are.

With that, I say meegwetch for inviting me this morning.

[The Chair, Conservative, Colin Mayes]

Mr. Lévesque, do you have a problem with your translation?

[Yvon Lévesque, Bloc, Abitibi—Baie-James—Nunavik—Eeyou, QC]

Absolutely not. Ms. Young seemed to having some problems with her earpiece. I merely wanted to mention to her that she could remove it during her presentation if it bothered her.

I'll wait my turn to ask questions.

[The Chair, Conservative, Colin Mayes]

Thank you, Mr. Lévesque.

Mr. Matthew.

[Nathan Matthew, Senior Advisor and Negotiator, Education, BC First Nations Leadership Council]

Bonjour, good morning, and weyt-k. It's good to be invited. Thank you for the invitation to appear before this committee, which seems to be influential over the lives of first nations people, and in this case particularly over education.

I should take a time check. It's 10 minutes?

I'm a Secwepemc, a Shuswap person from B.C. I live not too far from Colin in the North Thompson, north of Kamloops, in a community, on a reserve, the Simpcw First Nation. I was born and raised there. I have a background in education. I've been a residential school administrator, a band planner, a principal of a first nations school, and I have extensive experience just dealing with committee work over the last 20 years with regard to first nations education from early childhood to post-secondary. Currently, I am adviser to the First Nations Leadership Council in B.C., as well as the First Nations Education Steering Committee and the First Nations Schools Association in British Columbia.

With that, I think the discussion around post-secondary education is always timely; it's always been there for the last number of years. The expectation that first nations lives can be improved by participation in education I think is very true--I believe that, and I think we all do. But we have always been challenged, in the last couple of generations anyway, over the last hundred years, in gaining the benefit of an education that will allow us to succeed in a contemporary world, and not only to succeed in the contemporary world but to do it from the unique perspective of first nations people in terms of maintaining our language and culture as part of that success overall.

So the experience I have had is I think similar to the experiences of many other first nations people. I'm in my mid-fifties, and neither of my parents had any post-secondary education; they went to a residential school, they both went and completed that. In that institution you completed at grade 8 with absolutely no expectation of going on to take advantage of the benefits of a post-secondary education, to get into the professions and into business and that sort of thing. That was not the purpose of those institutions. The other negative aspect of the institutions is well-documented as well, the negative impact in terms of culture and language and that sort of thing.

Neither of my parents went to post-secondary education, and they had no expectation of going to any post-secondary education experience, and neither was there any support, either from their homes or from government.

I think to some extent we're still living the hangover from that experience. The expectations are still low, most of the kids don't expect to go on to post-secondary education, and there's a lack of significant support along the way, from the communities, the parents, and in the government's role in financial support, through policy and allocations of resources for post-secondary education.

Like Mary, I think a good education has a firm foundation in early childhood, in the K to 12 area. We simply don't have enough first nations learners who are succeeding in the K to 12 area to really close the gap significantly. If all of our kids graduated from grade 12 in the next number of years, we still wouldn't be closing the gap. There are very large numbers of first nations learners who simply do not have the benefits of a good quality grade 12 graduation certificate. Many of our students are graduating from grade 12, but without significant or appropriate credentials in terms of course work to go on into the post-secondary education program of their choice.

There's a huge pool of first nations learners out there who still need the benefit of a grade 12 education. So it's not simply post-secondary education that we have to deal with. We have to deal with early childhood education and K to 12. But the academics are a real challenge--the foundations that lead to success in post-secondary education. We're being challenged in that way. We're simply not getting the appropriate academic success to lead us to be successful in post-secondary areas.

We don't have many role models yet within our communities. I don't believe a lot of our children are being positively counselled and have career plans that clearly lead to post-secondary education. So those areas are really important to deal with.

Staying with the K to 12, we're still challenged in our first nations schools with having the appropriate support, particularly funding for the schools themselves, the schooling, and the systems for first nations learning in our communities.

A challenge is that entrance requirements for universities are rising. It's not just, “get a grade 12 certificate and you can get into university”. Many universities don't accept just any graduates. They have levels of entrance requirements that are quite a bit higher than just having a certificate. You have to graduate with a certain grade-point average before you can even be let in the door. So we require not just success but strong success at the grade 12 level to get into post-secondary education.

We have a large pool of first nations learners who don't have grade 12 or don't have sufficient credentials to get into post-secondary programs. We have a university-college education program to provide support for students going into post-secondary education, but that's just a one-year program. I believe we need more than just one year to support learners bridging their secondary experience with the requirements for entry into post-secondary education.

A very large issue that continues to come back to first nations is that neither Indian and Northern Affairs nor the federal government really takes responsibility for providing adequate resourcing for post-secondary education. It's not a firm mandate through legislation. The Indian Act is interpreted such that post-secondary education assistance is just a matter of policy. Down the road, first nations believe that the federal government might just set it aside and there won't be any support.

Costs are a real factor. Tuition allowances are limited, and the cost of tuition has been sky-rocketing in the last number of years. I think you're all aware of that from the stats. That is really a significant issue, as well as the cost of living. I know that support is pegged to the student loans program, but for first nations learners coming from remote rural areas, costs can be very significant.

Do I have more time?

[The Chair, Conservative, Colin Mayes]

You're fine.

[Nathan Matthew]

I was worried about that.

Certainly we're challenged just in terms of the broad social condition of first nations people in terms of poverty, in terms of access to services in our communities, health, addictions--all leading to challenges to just being successful in post-secondary education. So I think there has to be a more integrated look at how to support first nations in post-secondary education. It's not just post-secondary education, it's also supporting first nations in a holistic way and taking a look at the situation with regard to lifelong learning, rather than simply early childhood, K to 12, and post-secondary education.

Another issue is that the segmentation of responsibility of government to post-secondary education leads to fragmented programming, where you have some of the training taken by Human Resources Development Canada--that's the apprenticeship-type programs--and other supports such as child care are by other human services departments outside of Indian and Northern Affairs.

So it seems government doesn't really talk, the departments don't talk to one another or have a coordinated approach to supporting first nations learners at the post-secondary level.

One of the key issues, I believe, is that in the area of trades, the post-secondary programs through Indian and Northern Affairs don't allow for the support of apprenticeships and trades. That's a real challenge, and although there is funding that comes through other federal sources, it's a challenge to get those two bodies to work together, especially when it comes down to what happens in our community for provision of support. It's a real challenge.

Another area that we feel is a challenge is actually provision of the post-secondary services by first nations. So the development of first nations post-secondary institutions, we believe, is the right way to go in terms of first nations taking control and responsibility of post-secondary education, but there is very little support for that. So the rise of first nations post-secondary institutions across the country is being limited and the potential for their support for first nations in a positive way is limited because there is a lack of policy to support them in terms of their core revenue stream.

I have just a couple of ideas of what we're doing in B.C. We seem to do it a little bit differently in British Columbia. We think the best practice is led by, number one, first nations looking after their own education, having jurisdiction, and in post-secondary education, it's no different. We make the decisions, we develop the support systems, and we become responsible for the whole program. So we're looking toward that and developing ideas around jurisdiction. We have, of course, spent a lot of time developing partnerships. We've developed the B.C. post-secondary education and training partners program, which includes the B.C. Assembly of First Nations, the Ministry of Advanced Education, Indian and Northern Affairs, the University Presidents' Council, the B.C. College Presidents, and our own indigenous adult and higher learning association, working together to improve the levels of participation and success of aboriginal learners. We believe that working together with major stakeholders is a positive thing.

In that group, we have worked to identify areas of moving forward that we feel would be moving in a good and positive way. Number one is student support, both in the community and in post-secondary institutions. There is support for our own counsellors and administrators to have more specific training to provide counselling and academic support, in addition to institutional support in both first nations and public institutions, including program support and student support services, helping students make their way individually.

Another area we're working on is data. We don't believe we have enough information to make appropriate decisions. We want to collect information on a research basis about how our kids are doing and make decisions based on that.

The other area we're working on is a joint post-secondary education group in our own indigenous adult and higher learning organization. The Indian student support program--that's the Indian and Northern Affairs post-secondary program for institutions--and our own first nations education steering committee post-secondary subcommittee are working together to provide and strengthen first nations delivery of post-secondary education programs. And of course we're doing our own “working toward” research, going toward quality assurance in terms of programming and support for learning, and developing handbooks on post-secondary best practices for our own institutions and our communities.

There are many areas we can talk about in terms of post-secondary education. We do believe that funding is a real issue, not just funding for no purpose, but based on what we believe through research in order to meet the real needs to support first nations in terms of giving them the opportunities, making sure they have access, making sure they have a good solid K to 12 beginning, and to give them positive support once they get access to their programs in post-secondary. In many of those areas we're challenged by the resourcing, the organization, and the pulling together in terms of partnerships to complete the task.

Thank you.

[Witness speaks in his native language]

[The Chair, Conservative, Colin Mayes]

Thank you, Mr. Matthew.

We'll move to questions now, and we'll start with the Liberal Party.

Who would like to speak first?

Mr. Merasty.

[Gary Merasty, Liberal, Desnethé—Missinippi—Churchill River, SK]

First of all, thank you very much for your presentations. I think they speak loudly to some of the challenges you've addressed.

In one of my previous lives, I was a grand chief for six years. One of the biggest issues that emerged, of course, was funding. Logically, the next questions after that were: where do we direct the funding, and how do we invest strategically to support our students at the K to 12 and post-secondary levels?

In order to answer those questions, Mr. Matthew touches upon data collection, which helps drive strategies that come from the community level. If we don't know what our numbers are, how well we're doing, and where the challenges are, sometimes it's difficult for us to invest in those areas.

I'm a real strong supporter of data collection. In that light, I know that the Department of Indian Affairs doesn't really have an educational expertise; they collect numbers basically from a quantitative perspective. One of the things we're looking at here is trying to get the qualitative...an understanding of what works and what some of the best practices are.

My questions are going to be around funding, in one sense, and barriers on the other. I know if I had a chart in front of me, our population is going like this in the aboriginal community, the funding has basically flatlined, and the gap between the two is growing significantly. So directly, with respect to funding--and you've both identified issues there--could you comment on what that may mean for us as a people or for our students in the future?

The second thing is with respect to some of the barriers, aside from funding. Ms. Young specifically talked about housing. I know back home, because some of our bands don't tell students they are approved for funding until July, all the good housing is gone and they end up, for lack of a better term, in the ghetto, which affects their quality of life and the time dedicated to their studies. So maybe you could provide some thoughts on that as well.

And I have just a final thing. It seems to me that there's a critical mass of knowledge or information coming forward from successful programs such as you've both referred to—and I'll use the Saskatchewan context—whether it's Indian teacher education programs, native law centres, SIIT, and other support and access programs. They have the program at the U of W, the partnerships. It seems to me that we're starting to identify critical factors to success so that we can share those best practices and move forward quickly.

I don't know who wants to start, but maybe you could make some comments on those areas.

[Mary Young]

When we form partnerships with other organizations, to me that means we're going to work together. For many years, since the era of the residential school system, we have walked not together but away from each other. Aboriginal people and non-aboriginal people don't know each other in Canada, and we need to close that gap. We have to have relevant curricula in high schools and universities and let aboriginal people know that we live on this land, we're from this land, and we are important.

You asked for real issues. This is my dissertation on my educational journey--and I'm sure Nathan has experienced some of the things I have. I graduated twice from grade 12, once from a commercial program, and when I said I wanted to go to university, the guidance counsellor laughed. I said, “I want to go to university.” I was placed in that stream because I wasn't expected to become somebody other than a stenographer. So when you ask about high school and the education of young people, we cannot stream aboriginal students anymore. It goes back to what Nathan was talking about in careers; otherwise the money is gone.

For me, that collaboration is very, very important. The supports must be in place with educational authorities who send students to universities and say, “You take five full courses, which is 30 credit hours.” Many people who work in those positions do not have a university education, so how can they understand what university means? University, to us, is still very new.

When I was called to come to this meeting this morning, there was no way I was going to say no. This is too important, and we have to look at those many issues that you brought up.

[Nathan Matthew]

In terms of funding, I think we have to get real in terms of the numbers we're dealing with. We have an idea about how many students aren't getting access to post-secondary education just because of funding. They're eligible, but they're not getting in. We don't have any research tools to tell us the real numbers on that. I think we have to develop those and make sure first nations are involved with the collection of information.

We need to be tracking students: how are we doing prior to the students getting to post-secondary education? A lot of the problems we're having in terms of success are predictable. If they're not on an academic math or English track that allows them to get into a post-secondary program, an academic program, what kind of expectation are we giving our students? A lot of our students really believe they're going to get into university just because they have a certificate. That's not real. I think we have to make sure we have a good information base about the students we're dealing with and not depend on Statistics Canada or anything like that and make some guesses five years after the fact. That I think is a real challenge.

In terms of the actual funding, I think we should be dealing with tuition costs, the actual costs of tuition. We should have the cost of living, all the issues around what it costs to live: food, transportation, accommodation, and child care. We should be experts on that. If we're responsible for post-secondary education for first nations learners, then we're the ones who have the responsibility of making intelligent decisions and less of a back-and-forth argument about the true situation of aboriginal learners.

Right now, the Department of Indian and Northern Affairs has information about post-secondary education. They have all the information, but they don't share it with first nations. That's a real challenge.

[The Chair, Conservative, Colin Mayes]

Okay, we'll move to Mr. Lemay.

[Marc Lemay, Bloc, Abitibi—Témiscamingue, QC]

Thank you for joining us.

First of all, your presence here today impresses me. More extraordinary still is the fact that you have completed post-secondary studies. You have to admit that this is quite rare in aboriginal communities, too rare in fact. That's why we made the decision to study the future of post-secondary education in aboriginal communities. I'd like to congratulate you personally--and probably on behalf of all my colleagues here--for achieving such a high level of education.

I come from a small town in the Abitibi region called Amos. It is located some six hours north of here by automobile. We had one native residential in town. Over the years, we always managed to segregate natives from non-natives.

Your observations are a very accurate reflection of the events of the 1960s and 1970s which unfortunately, resulted in many First Nations losing their culture, a culture that today they are attempting to reclaim.

Mr. Matthew said something very important and it has stuck with me: Learning to live in a modern world almost cost us our culture. Now we must learn to sustain it.

My question is for Mr. Matthew. How can aboriginal culture be sustained through post-secondary studies? Let me give you one example. Back home in Rouyn-Noranda, the Cree own all of the buildings in which students from the North reside while attending school. These residences have been adapted to meet their needs. I wanted to point this out because at least something is being done somewhere. Perhaps communities should...

Sadly, there are no such residences in Winnipeg, Regina or Montreal where members of First Nations can meet, without necessarily feeling cut off from the rest of the world.

Ms. Young, your MA thesis is extremely interesting. Could the Library of Parliament possibly get a copy of it for inclusion in our files? In my view, it touches on a number of very important issues.

How does a person, often someone from a remote aboriginal community, manage not be assimilated into so-called Canadian society when he or she relocates to a large city to the South to study medicine, law or some other discipline? Is there a particular approach we could advocate or a recommendation that we could include in our report?

Those are my two questions.

[Nathan Matthew]

I think the question was how do you preserve the culture for first nations. It's a very high-level question, and it has to do with the Government of Canada and the people of Canada--the non-first nations people of Canada--giving full respect and recognition to the aboriginal title and rights as set out in section 35 of the Constitution, recognizing the right to the land for those who have aboriginal title, updating the old treaties to ensure there's a contemporary perspective given to those, and really respecting and recognizing first nations as having a right to live in this country as unique people. If we can live in our own traditional territories with rights to the land and the resources and the benefits of the land and resources and the benefits of having the right to associate amongst ourselves and create our own political and cultural and economic institutions, that, I believe, will preserve first nations.

That's my short answer. So I think that's the problem. We have been constantly challenged over the years by non-first nations governments and non-first nations people to our right to live as unique people in this land. There still is a strong attitude against that idea and I think that's the challenge. If there is respect and recognition, then I really do believe that first nations people will look after their own culture and their own languages. If we had the benefits of the resources in our traditional territories, we wouldn't be coming to the federal government to fund our post-secondary education or anything. There's sufficient money within our lands, sufficient benefits to be had, that if we had access to that, then I think that would be a solution for this country.

[Mary Young]

Meegwetch for asking that question.

It has been a challenge to maintain my language and my culture because I decided I was going to live in Winnipeg. When I was going through high school and when I was facing racism and discrimination, I didn't want to be with aboriginal people. I didn't want to be aboriginal. It was only after I went back spiritually and thought about what my father had taught me, it was only then that I was able to succeed in university, in my life in the city. And I can't believe I actually agreed and believed other people that aboriginal people were not good people, including my parents.

When I talk about real issues in school and in universities, those are the kinds of things I talk about because I had to spend many years unravelling all those identities that were given to me. I am a Nishnawbe. I am not aboriginal.

[Witness speaks in her native language] We were given the language, Anishinaabemowin, not Soto, not Ojibway. So the identity and the culture is really crucial.

And if that student from the far north wants to move into the city and practise there, he or she needs to carry their language, their culture, to survive where they'll end up, and the patients that he or she is going to serve will recognize how proud that person is. Nathan is right. Each of us has a responsibility of keeping our languages and keeping them alive, and we have to remember that they are not dead languages.

I hope that answers your question, Mr. Lemay.

[The Chair, Conservative, Colin Mayes]

Thank you.

We'll move on to Madam Crowder, please.

Sorry, Mr. Matthew.

[Nathan Matthew]

I want to address what you can do at the post-secondary level to preserve culture. I'm associated with Thompson Rivers University in Kamloops, B.C. One of the ideas we're looking at is a community of first nations learners. In this case we take the students who haven't quite made the eligibility for full post-secondary entrance, so we're preparing them in terms of college or university preparation. We'd bring in first nations, 15 or 20, and keep them together and give them particular support. The support would be largely coming from themselves in terms of looking after their own interests and in terms of working successfully on their issues at the university. That's one area.

Another, and this is in terms of the federal government, is providing centres in universities for first nations, places for students to gather and to deal with their issues, to have conversations, and for the university itself to have their own staff come and talk to first nations about first nations issues and get acquainted a little better, because in a lot of cases first nations just disappear into the school or the post-secondary population.

Many first nations have elders-in-residence programs, so there's a body a post-secondary learner can go and talk to and get counselling and get some of that security around culture. A lot have specific hiring practices attracting first nations aboriginal instruction. Of course, in B.C. every post-secondary institution has a first nations aboriginal counsellor on staff to provide support for first nations learners.

In many cases, campuses at our post-secondary institutions have very specific physical aspects with first nations motifs. When you go there as a first nations person, there are things you recognize, just in the buildings and the art that's on the wall and that sort of thing, that make it less alien. Many things can be done to preserve culture and a sense of identity and esteem for first nations learners in a post-secondary environment.

[The Chair, Conservative, Colin Mayes]

Thank you.

Ms. Crowder is next.

[Jean Crowder, NDP, Nanaimo—Cowichan, BC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I want to thank you both for coming before this committee. I come from Vancouver Island and had the good fortune to work at Malaspina University-College, where a significant number of aboriginal students were on campus, so I have had some firsthand experience in working with aboriginal students and their issues.

I will give a bit of context. When the committee decided to look at the post-secondary area, it was not that the committee didn't recognize the very serious issues in the K to 12 programs but that we were waiting for the department to report on some other issues they were looking at in the K to 12 area and we didn't want to pre-empt their study.

The other thing is that significant numbers of studies have identified barriers. One example was the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples. We've got a binder full of executive summaries on studies on barriers to post-secondary education. You've certainly listed some of them: poverty, housing, support, resources, financial recognition--I mean, the list goes on and on. Demographics--Mr. Merasty talked about the changing demographics and the fact that we're going to have significantly more young people.

I don't want to see us spending endless weeks on a study to look at barriers that have already been identified; I want to know what we need to do in a very real way to close these gaps. I know more funding is one of them, and that's one thing we have to say: there needs to be more money.

There is another issue. One of the things that prompted me to be interested in the post-secondary area was the statement you made at the outset, Mr. Matthew, around the fact that there is no legislation; it is simply policy. I was surprised to find out that post-secondary could disappear off the agenda, or be devolved to provincial governments, because there's no legislative mandate to require the federal government to be involved in post-secondary. I think that's a very real problem.

Could you talk about that? I know you can't solve this problem in five minutes.

[Nathan Matthew]

What is the question?

[Jean Crowder, NDP, Nanaimo—Cowichan, BC]

What do we need to do? We've identified the barriers. The gaps are very clear. What do we need to do to get some very real action to address this very real need here?

[Nathan Matthew]

As with K to 12 education, we should put post-secondary education more in the hands of first nations people, making first nations people responsible for programming and the results their learners are getting. That's one issue.

Again, to promote partnerships.... The majority of first nations post-secondary learners go to public institutions, and there have to be partnerships, agreements, memoranda of understanding, and protocols between first nations and those public institutions. That, in itself--and I'm not sure how you could legislate that kind of goodwill or planning--is necessary.

If first nations are going to realize their potential in contributing to their own well-being and to this country, we have to take significant steps. In terms of post-secondary education, we really have to put the responsibility and the decision-making into the hands of first nations people--I truly believe that and trust in that process--and as well, really do a better job than we have been in K to 12. We simply are not getting the kinds of graduates necessary for any kind of broad success in post-secondary, simply because we don't have the students graduating with the kind of strength that's necessary. We really aren't looking at the broader spectrum as much as we have to, in terms of going straight from early childhood, K to 12, to post-secondary and taking a lifelong perspective on education for first nations.

[Mary Young]

I agree with Nathan that we have performed partnerships. There was a history made a year ago in Winnipeg. The University of Winnipeg had a memorandum of understanding with the southeast tribal council.

They asked me to name the building where the self-governance program was going to be. It was historic because this was the first time the University of Winnipeg partnered with an aboriginal organization. I saw that partnership in a very significant way. So when I tried to come up with the name of the building, I thought about my parents again. My father would refer to my mother as Ni Wiichiiwaakan, and my father would say the same thing about her.

So I came up with the term Wii ChiiWaaKanak, which means partners. I saw the southeast tribal council as not merely observers; they were going to be equal participants in that memorandum of understanding.

When I was at a meeting, one of the administrators or consultants came in and said, “I don't know how to use that word, so can I just call it 'partners'”? I said, “No, you won't. I spent time; it was in honour of my parents that I named that building, and you will learn to pronounce Wii ChiiWaaKanak.” So those are the fights that we need to do in universities.

I teach a course right now called Aboriginal Issues in Education. It's designed for education students. Most of the students in that class are in their fourth and fifth year. Do you know how many don't know anything about the residential school system? We're training these students to become teachers. They need to know the history of aboriginal people in Canada. If they don't have that history, how can they teach children who are having difficulty with who they are because they don't know how to speak the language? So we need to change how we train teachers.

Only in the last three years have we had courses on indigenous knowledge in university, at least at the University of Winnipeg. I imagine other universities are more advanced than we are. When we have courses like indigenous knowledge and indigenous science, we're telling aboriginal students—and all students—that those courses are important, significant. That will help us collaborate with one another. So if there's a recommendation...Nathan referred to centres. We need these kinds of centres to legitimize those activities, to legitimize indigenous knowledge and science.

If I could put that building somewhere in the University of Winnipeg, do you know what that would mean to the aboriginal community in the inner-city area? We are saying, we welcome you; you come and visit us. We need to have those centres.

Thank you very much.

[The Chair, Conservative, Colin Mayes]

Thank you.

Can we move to Mr. Stanton?