Indigenous and Northern Affairs Committee on Sept. 28th, 2006

[Keith Frame]

I'm not sure about provincial partnerships right now. It would be negligent for me to talk about that.

The Prince Albert Grand Council has a very close working relationship with Saskatchewan Learning in the northern region. We try to work together as closely as possible. But they're a bit different in those systems. They don't always lend themselves.... Some of the projects they get funding for, we do anyway. For example, a number of years ago, community schools were a big concern at the provincial level, but we had been doing it for a long time because the need was there.

[The Chair, Conservative, Colin Mayes]

We're going to move on to Mr. Lévesque.

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

Good morning, Mr. Frame.

I come back to your selection method for post-secondary students. I do not question it, but I only wish to remind you that even in the sports world, it may happen that a junior player is very successful at that level but not at all in the big leagues while another one who is just fair at the junior level will be very successful in the big leagues.

I have been teaching to First Nation people who had dropped out and had to take special courses to finish their high school. Once they were in those special classes, they succeeded very well.

You are saying that you have 28 K to 12 schools. Do you know what percentage of native teachers there is in the total number of schools in your territory?

I shall put all my questions at the same time because we do not have much time left.

Do you have an idea of students' persistence in reserve schools compared to students off reserve? How many post-secondary institutions are there in Saskatchewan?

I also had a question on lodging but you gave us a good presentation on that subject.

[Keith Frame]

Thank you. I'll take a look at these questions you've asked me.

In terms of demographics and the numbers we have in northern Saskatchewan, the aboriginal first nations population of youth is very large in northern Saskatchewan. I'd be remiss to give you an exact percentage. In public schools in our territory, the numbers are very high. We have students who go from reserve to the community and who live there. For example, in the Prince Albert Grand Council, if there were roughly 400 youth on reserve in one community, there'd probably be about 200 in communities like Prince Albert. The urban population is growing quite large as well.

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

Maybe I was not clear enough. What I would like to know is the percentage of native teachers in your 28 schools compared to the total number of teachers in your territory.

[Keith Frame]

Our percentage of first nations-aboriginal teachers is fairly high as more have completed programs like NORTEP and NITEP, which are educational training programs to have teachers from the north trained to work in the north. It's very difficult in some of our schools to get teachers. It's so difficult, in fact, that sometimes we're not able to offer a whole high school program because we can't find teachers. The percentage of first nations-aboriginal teachers is fairly high. It changes from year to year, because we get a lot of turnover in our schools.

You mentioned something about school attendance. The attendance in some communities is higher than in others. Again, even with K to 12 education, there are a lot factors that play into a young individual going to school. In some communities attendance is very strong and in some it's not. It really depends on the situation taking place at home, in the community, and at large. When I talk about attendance, I think it's very important to mention that although some students have a rough situation, they still attend. It's very difficult sometimes--from my perspective, from what I've seen.

Where do students go for post-secondary education? Some of them go to just about anywhere they can get in. They'll go to La Ronge for programs. They'll go to Saskatoon or Regina. For a lot of our youth, it's not, “Where would you like to go?”, it's “Where can I go?” There was some statistic I ran across--I have it in the document--that says if the commute to a college or university is more than 80 kilometres, the chances of a youth making that commute drop significantly. In most of our communities, you have to fly and drive for four or five hours. Those are the types of transportation things I was mentioning. It's more than a bus pass in the city; it's a whole “pick up your family and move” thing. It's a little more.

[The Chair, Conservative, Colin Mayes]

Thank you.

We'll move on to Mr. Albrecht, please.

[Harold Albrecht, Conservative, Kitchener—Conestoga, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you, Mr. Frame, for being here today.

I just want to clarify some of the figures you mentioned and that my colleague followed up on. You said from 1998 to 1999 there were 42 grads from 28 schools. Then I thought I heard you say from 2003 to 2004 there were 184 grads, representing only 19% of the students. There's still a large group of people who aren't graduating.

However, I want to focus on the increase for a minute. Could you identify what you think some of the factors were for that increase?

One of the questions I have is whether the parents of these students have any input into the programming decisions. Are there school boards or local school councils that would be looking at things such as job market opportunities and those kinds of things, with a view to increasing their retention rate at that level?

Then, later on you mentioned that at the end of your report you have some clear conclusions and recommendations. One of the obligations of this committee when we're through with this study will be to write a report. I would be very interested in specific recommendations. Obviously, finance is one, and we all know there's not an unlimited supply of dollars.

Are there other structural things that you see that would help us address the issues you've identified today?

[Keith Frame]

You mention the statistics, the 44 to 184 students. If you have 200 students and you get 44 grads, that's great, but you have to remember that the population in those high schools is growing significantly.

So when I talk to my chiefs and council, I say, “It's a great thing. We've got 184. Things are looking up.” But we have to remember the volume that's there.

Off the top of my head, approximately 87% of our students are below grade 10. There's a great volume of students, and it's growing. So although that number looks very promising, there's lots of work to go forward with, in my opinion.

On school boards and input into programs, yes, all of our communities in the grand council have school boards. We have moms and dads from the community with kids in the school, and some of them are pretty active and some are not so. In terms of programs, a very strong element is to talk about culture, to talk about language, to have programs in the elementary schools to the high schools to deal with that. Lots of our communities have camps where students go out and understand those experiences, not necessarily to turn them into trappers and fishermen, because it's tough to make a career there, but just to have a good understanding of who they are, where they are. In the grand council, that's very important for us.

You talked about the guidance and counselling that takes place. In some of our schools it's tough because, as I said before, you might not have money in your budget to have a counsellor. You try to do the best you can because you know it's something that's needed. One of our projects is to bring all of our counsellors together to talk about careers and education with students, to try to be able to address some of the issues they're going through in their lives, because a guidance counsellor is a very big important part of a high school, of a junior high school. And you need people who had time to be trained to be able to work with those issues, because I believe they are very special.

On the recommendations about how to address issues, tomorrow, after it's translated, you'll have those to look at.

You made reference to improving education and structure. One of the things we've stated in our documents is to improve and equip some of our schools in the communities to address education better at K to 12, at post-secondary. A lot of times when we look at adult education, what we find from our indicators, our programs, is that the adults like to come to the high school instead of going to a different building, because the high school is able to have a biology lab, a chemistry lab, and some of those storefronts don't have those types of things.

When you talk about structure, I made mention a little while ago that you might not be able to have a chemistry teacher. Well, we've developed a distance computer classroom that goes to the community. So if I have two students in Black Lake and one student in Cumberland House, I might be able to get those five or ten students with that chemistry they need to go on because they want to be a nurse. Without that, it's not uncommon for us to say, “Sorry, you can't take Math C30, we don't have a teacher.” I have come across that, where we say, “We can't offer it to you.” So when you talk about structure, those are the types of things we're looking at in K to 12 right now.

[The Chair, Conservative, Colin Mayes]

Madam Crowder, do you have a question?

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

I do, and it's very brief.

[The Chair, Conservative, Colin Mayes]

Okay. The only person who hasn't asked a question is Madam Karetak-Lindell.

Do you want to ask a question after?

[Nancy Karetak-Lindell, Liberal, Nunavut, NU]

I just wanted to make one comment.

[The Chair, Conservative, Colin Mayes]

I'm going to wait until Madam Crowder speaks first.

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

Thank you.

I think much has been made about jurisdictional issues, and we talked about whose responsibility is post-secondary education. I think generally we would agree that delivery of post-secondary education is a provincial responsibility, but access and funding is a federal responsibility when we're talking about first nations and Inuit peoples. That's my comment.

One of the values of this kind of public process is that we get a chance to do some educating and awareness raising in the public venue. One of the myths that you've helped set straight today is the myth that any first nations person who wants to access a post-secondary education just gets a cheque written for them. I think it's really clear from what you've said today that there are long waiting lists, that access is a huge problem. Many bright people who would be great contributors to their communities and to Canada at large simply do not have access.

I wonder if you could comment on the graduation rates from first nations grade 12 students versus the provincial grade 12 graduation rate, and I wonder if you could comment on whether there's a difference between those two graduation rates.

[Keith Frame]

I'm glad you brought that up. In the work I've done, I've gone through some of the equity reports from school divisions in Saskatchewan where they're supposed to have the same percentages of staff—school board stuff. I'm glad you raised that issue, because a lot of times in our schools...in the grand council you start to look at such things as student attendance and student education, and with those issues you start to feel a little heavy-hearted.

What was interesting was that I gathered information from one of the public school boards and took a look at their success rates working with aboriginal first nations students. They're having as difficult a time as we are.

In the study I do mention, regarding students who started in grade 10 and those who graduated in grade 12, they didn't know where 60% of them were. Their comment was, well, we just don't know.

When we talk about kindergarten to grade 12 and the close relationship I mentioned we had with the northern region in Saskatchewan, the public school, Saskatchewan Learning.... When we get on the phone and we're talking about curriculum, attendance, departmentals, and hiring and teacher retention, they say, “Welcome to the club. We're going through the same thing.” The only thing that's different is the name on the door; we're all having a difficult time.

So for educators, you sometimes think that your world is the most important world, that your school is the most important thing, but everyone is going through the same thing. It's very difficult.

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

So in effect one could almost argue that the first nations schools, even though their graduation rates might be the same, are more successful because they face far more barriers. They have less resources.

[Keith Frame]

I would hate to say that's true; I don't have the information on it. All I know is a common phrase we use in the grand council in northern Saskatchewan is that we all share the same students and we're all dealing with the same issues.

[The Chair, Conservative, Colin Mayes]

Ms. Karetak-Lindell, I'll give you a question.

[Nancy Karetak-Lindell, Liberal, Nunavut, NU]

Thank you.

Mine is more of a comment. As I was listening to you—and thank you very much for your information—if I can speak for Gary and myself, we hear a lot more than what you're saying.

I always say that as a committee we should try very hard to go to the communities and see for ourselves what you're saying behind what you're saying. We can sit here and listen to a hundred witnesses, but we'd never fully understand unless we go to the communities and see for ourselves exactly what barriers the young people in our communities are facing. I'm sure you would agree with me there.

[Keith Frame]

Thank you for the comment.

Yes, I do agree with you. As I said before, I've had a lot of tough plane rides home after visiting schools.

I think it's very important to go see the communities and talk to some of the young individuals, to some of the moms and dads, and to the teachers in the communities, right down to the kindergarten and grade one teachers, and talk to some of the students who've gone to post-secondary school at the University of Saskatchewan and maybe dropped out—not because they weren't smart, not because they weren't motivated, but because of all these other hurdles. No sooner do you think you're by one than there's another and another, and so on.

Would it be interesting? Yes, and by all means, you're welcome. I'll drive, if you want to sit in the seat and keep me company. I think it's very important to see it and talk to those people.

[Nancy Karetak-Lindell, Liberal, Nunavut, NU]

At least you can drive; you can't in my region.

[Keith Frame]

Without taking that into consideration, it would be like trying to explain the colour red or purple to a blind person.

It's like you said, you're hearing more than what I'm saying, and I can't say enough to say what I want to.

[The Chair, Conservative, Colin Mayes]

Mr. Stanton, and then we'll end the questioning.

[Bruce Stanton, Conservative, Simcoe North, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

To be honest, it picks up on the same theme, and I think it might have been in response to Dr. Bennett's question, when you first mentioned the long plane ride home. I was hoping there might be an opportunity to come back to this, because you've talked in a general sense about that kind of condition, but there's obviously some detail below the surface we're really not getting to.

I wonder if you could take a minute or two to put in your own words, in real terms, what it is that actually makes this so difficult. You're obviously dealing with potential students for further education, and there are some social complications preventing them from going as far as they can. What actually is it that becomes so difficult for you, being in the position that you are, to help them get along?

I wonder if you could take a minute or two to expand on that in a bit more detail, because it was an interesting comment, but we'd like to know what's behind it.