Yes. Thank you, Mr. Chair, and good morning.
First of all, I certainly want to give heartfelt thanks for the testimony you have provided here this morning. I want to honour Mary's story. I've heard only a portion of it, but I think it's vitally important to understand the human aspect of what a lot of aboriginal students go through to reach the heights you have reached. Mr. Matthew talked about role models. Well, there are a lot of role models in this room, and you two are among them. I look at Gary Merasty, a fellow aboriginal person, who has accomplished things.
In my own right, I came from a community of 50 people on the coast of Labrador. We had a one-room school until grade 8. We had no water and no sewers in our community until 1990. There were no telephones until 1990. So I understand somewhat. And Mary's story reminded me that we have to keep remembering our roots--where we come from--and the challenges we have as we go through.
This is not an easy study we're undertaking as a committee. It has huge breadth and depth. We're going to have to try to focus on concrete recommendations that we can put forward and to which we can have the government respond in order to advance the issues of aboriginal post-secondary students in particular. I don't think we can lose sight of the primary and the secondary, and of what's happening even at the community level.
We have a human resource shortage in the country--that's what everybody tells us--in almost every occupation, from doctors, nurses, and lawyers, right down to people who are going to drive the oil trucks in the Alberta tar sands. A lot of people look to aboriginal people as a pool of human capital--for want of better words--or as a human resource, but I don't see the emphasis being put on aboriginal people to fill the void that people say exists in society.
I think that's an overarching message. Are we not valuable enough to invest in, or, in other words, to meet what corporations want, or what government wants, or what companies want? I'm very concerned about what that message says to aboriginal people in general, because we see cuts when we should be seeing money being invested.
I find that the committee's study and the witnesses' study—not to take anything away—really focus on university. There seems to be a propensity towards university in our discussions, whereas the post-secondary imbalance is much more than that. It involves the trades, the technical colleges, and all of these other types of programs that are out there.
Can either of you comment on what's being done with a focus on post-secondary education, for instance, when we talk about entrance requirements? Entrance requirements for trade schools or technical colleges are not as rigorous as they are for university, generally speaking. I'm not saying we should downplay ourselves either and say, okay, just because we don't meet grade 12 qualifications, we'll all be shuffled off into trades college. But there are valuable life experiences and careers at that level as well. I think we should also talk about that a little bit.
I'm just wondering if you guys can focus on it, because my experience is that there are some good things happening, like those at the University of Winnipeg, and even at Memorial University of Newfoundland, and at universities in B.C. What is being done at the trade school level, for instance, with a view to cultural retention or language retention? Is the same sort of thing happening at that level? Can any of you speak to that particular experience?