I'd like to just say briefly that I got lost getting over here. I've never been in these buildings before, not even for a tour.
In any case, I guess the issue I've been asked to participate in here is in relation to the presentation to be made by Madame Édith Cloutier from the Université du Québec en Abitibi-Témiscamingue on the intervention strategy for teaching, research, among the first nations populations.
I'm the current chairman of the Cree School Board. I was elected in August this year, and I represent the Cree Nation of Quebec. You've probably heard a lot about those people. Anyway, my presence here is to give support to Madame Cloutier's presentation in terms of the aspect of providing post-secondary education much closer to the Cree territory.
Presently, the Cree School Board sponsors anywhere from 350 to 400 post-secondary students scattered throughout the province of Quebec, and mostly in the province of Ontario, but we also have students attending different colleges and universities throughout the rest of the country, as far away as B.C.
The main issue that I would like to put forth in terms of supporting the initiative taken by the Université du Québec en Abitibi-Témiscamingue is that our students in the last several years have shown little success in terms of finishing their degree programs or their diploma programs at whatever post-secondary institution they may be attending, and that mainly has to do with the culture shock, the distance away from home. Our students finish high school in their own communities, and once they leave their home communities they're subjected to a whole new environment, a totally strange environment where they are pretty much expected to succeed, and normally this has not really been the case. The establishment of institutions much closer to the Cree territory would be a solution for ensuring that our students do succeed in post-secondary programs.
The Cree Nation of Quebec has evolved quite rapidly over the last 30 years. We have our own Cree School Board, we have our own Cree Health Board, our own Cree companies, Cree businesses, that sort of thing. In February 2002 we signed a new relationship agreement with the Province of Quebec as well as with Hydro-Québec for additional hydroelectric development. Within that agreement, we received a lot of benefits that require us to train, to educate, and to eventually bring about different jobs, or autonomy within the Cree Nation.
Now that calls for a number of positions that need to be created throughout the Cree territory as the communities evolve and the economic development of each of those communities develops. Presently in our school board we have close to, I would say, 1,000 employees. The majority of those employees are in the lower level management areas and also in the support staff area.
We have teachers who have graduated from our teacher training program, which is enshrined into the James Bay and Northern Quebec Agreement under section 16. Over those years we have developed teachers up to the elementary level. Just recently we included a teacher training program component to bring up secondary level teachers from our elementary sectors.
Now, we still have a large number of non-native teachers who need to be replaced by our own people. We have a lot of nurses and doctors who need to be replaced, eventually, by Cree people.
The entities I'm talking about incur a lot of expenses in providing housing and other benefits for non-native people who come from the south. Even that doesn't really keep them in the communities for a long time. They stay for an average of four years, and then they eventually leave. We have a question of consistency there, and we feel that we need to provide more post-secondary programs much closer to our Cree territory to ensure success.
Our children at a young age start to get familiar with some of the southern communities that are close to the Cree territory. They participate in a lot of educational activities and sporting activities. The new relationship agreement that was signed between the Cree Nation and the Province of Quebec has really triggered much closer relationships with the francophone communities of Val d'or, Amos, Rouyn-Noranda, and the surrounding region.
I think the Cree School Board needs to look at providing much closer post-secondary education within that domain to ensure that the necessary positions can be filled by our own Cree people, instead of constantly having people from the south come in for several years and then leave without really making a long-term commitment to help in the development of our Cree community.