Indigenous and Northern Affairs Committee on Oct. 24th, 2006

[The Chair, Conservative, Colin Mayes]

Thank you.

Mr. Blaney.

[Steven Blaney, Conservative, Lévis—Bellechasse, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I'm going to speak to you in French, Mr. Mendelson. I'd like to thank you for coming to meet with us.

As Ms. Karetak-Lindell said, sometimes we don't hear things we would like to hear, but your report and documents nevertheless contain information that we have to deal with.

I'm from Quebec. One statistic really strikes me. You say 60 percent of students don't complete their Secondary V. We know that, but it's not necessarily pleasant to see it on a table. I think that reflects certain challenges that the members of the First Nations have to face.

A number of committee members will be going to Lac Saint-Jean, to Mashteuiatsh, to attend the First Nations Socio-Economic Forum. They will have to determine the issues that are related to First Nations development.

I think you've been very clear. By that, I mean that, for you, education is a priority; it's a driver for getting students out of a vicious circle.

That leads me to ask you the following question. Can you give me more of an explanation on your basis for making such a clear, distinct connection between academic success in the community and better socio-economic conditions for the communities?

[Michael Mendelson]

Just quickly, under the slide on page 16, it is even worse, because it's only the population aged 20 to 24, it's not the general population. If you look at the general population, the results are even more discouraging than you would think at first glance. I just want to point that out. It's not great.

I hope there will be a lot of focus on the education issue in your discussion in Quebec.

The question you asked, just remind me.... I'm sorry, what was the--

[Steven Blaney, Conservative, Lévis—Bellechasse, QC]

You make a clear link between low socio-economic status and studies. You say that studies show that better education is...you know, the kind of thing we heard from our parents. But I guess you assume--

[Michael Mendelson]

It's the cycle: low socio-economic status is the best predictor of failure to complete school and get a post-secondary education, which is itself the best indicator of low socio-economic status--and it goes on and on. How you break the cycle of low socio-economic status and low educational attainment are very difficult questions.

The studies have shown, however, that there are very significant financial and economic returns to aboriginal students who do complete post-secondary education. There have been some pretty good studies. One I think has been done by Statistics Canada, and I've referenced a few other independent researchers. One study showed that on average, a woman who completes university will have an additional income of $1 million in her lifetime. This was several years ago, so it's probably $2 million by now. The data shows that there are very significant returns.

I think part of our challenge will be, one, to show that kind of information to young aboriginal people; and secondly, to convince them that they do have a chance. If they can finish school, they do have a chance and there will be significant results.

How that then translates back to the community I think is a challenge for first nations. Many, many of the people who have been successful among first nations have gone back to their communities. They are trying to contribute, and Roberta is obviously one of them. That is happening.

There are some pretty successful reserves, by the way. Membertou, just as an example, on Cape Breton, has been very successful. They've essentially been putting every single student through high school, and they're trying to get every single student to succeed in post-secondary education. There are some very successful reserves on the west coast as well.

[The Chair, Conservative, Colin Mayes]

Mr. Albrecht.

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

I would like to follow up on that last point.

Thank you, by the way, for your excellent presentation.

How can we take that data from a reserve where they have a very high success rate and replicate it across the country? Secondly, in your larger report, your first conclusion refers to how we would establish targets at various levels. You mentioned the different groups that would need to establish those. Could you just give an extra two- or three-minute description of how you see that working as well?

Thank you.

[Michael Mendelson]

Those are really two different questions.

One of the hardest questions in social policy is how you replicate success. It's a question I've thought about often, because the reality often is that a successful social initiative is a result of leadership, somebody being a great inspirational leader and taking risks on the ground and really being capable. You can't necessarily easily replicate that.

If you look at some of the reserves that have been most successful, you'll find often that there is somebody who has been a terrific leader. So that's sort of the difficult part.

But I think what we need to do is invest--and I would say that this would be a challenge for INAC--in a real best practices process that's more than sort of a bow to occasionally writing up a few paragraphs on a website, the kinds of best practices that....

Take a big board of education like the Winnipeg school board or Vancouver or Toronto. They'll spend a lot of time looking at schools that are successful, encouraging the principals who are successful, finding out what's going on, taking those lessons and having meetings among the principals and others to try to translate the success from one place to....

It's going on in a few sort of isolated regions, just because of individual initiatives in the regions. But there's no systematic school system that encourages that automatic, ongoing, continuous improvement for on-reserve aboriginal education. And I think that's a problem in INAC.

The second question of setting targets I discuss, and it's a different question. I'm a believer in setting quantitative targets and measuring the outcomes, if you can. The real problem, and the first problem in this area, is measuring the outcome, because we really don't have any ongoing measurement. That's one of the reasons I used the census, which is done every five years, and it's not very good in many ways.

There is the development now of some better data sources, based on what we call administrative data, but they need to be developed and researched. So the first thing about setting targets is that there is no use setting a target unless you can measure the results.

Then I would say that there should be a consensual approach among first nations and governments--both provincial and federal--and educators in the region to set targets and to try to set realistic targets that are difficult, challenging, ambitious, and achievable.

We could go through more specifics. I would say that doing it region by region would be better than doing it sort of holus-bolus for all of Canada.

[The Chair, Conservative, Colin Mayes]

Thank you.

I'm just going to comment. That was a question that I had, as far as tracking success--is it just due to funding, or are there other factors? You've touched on that. It has a lot to do with leadership and I think with self-empowerment within the aboriginal community and with what their priorities are and what their leadership is all about. I think that's a good observation.

But I also know that there need to be the resources there when they manage to bring that together to make sure that they can carry through with those aspirations as far as direction and leadership.

Thank you very much for speaking to us today. We really appreciate that.

Yes, Madam Crowder.

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

This is not to do with the presentation, but I can't remember if we had a date when the parliamentary secretary was going to bring back that information on the residential schools. It was at that meeting that had been in camera but was supposed to be public.

[The Chair, Conservative, Colin Mayes]

Right, okay. We could do that at the next meeting.

You did report to us, but it was at the tail end of our meeting and it was kind of rushed.

Do you want something more thorough and do you want it written, also?

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

I had thought that the parliamentary secretary had said that he was going to bring it back, because we actually didn't get to hear it all.

[The Chair, Conservative, Colin Mayes]

There have been a few news releases as far as cheques going out and that type of thing.

Could I ask the parliamentary secretary to provide a one-page statement? Then we can discuss that.

Thank you again.

We are now adjourned.