Thank you.
I want to thank everyone for the invitation to speak to you today.
There is one misconception that some people may have and that I would like to clear up to begin with. It seems to me from talking to various people, particularly people in offices on Parliament Hill, that there is a misconception that it has only been governments that have been demanding changes at the First Nations University of Canada. That simply is not the case. For the last five years, since February 2005, many members of the faculty—the great majority of the faculty—and many of our students have been calling for exactly the same kinds of changes in governance and administration that numerous parties have called for, in particular the federal and provincial governments.
It would be a mistake to think that anyone needs to inform the faculty of the university of the kinds of governance and administrative problems we have suffered over the past five years. Nobody could be more aware of those difficulties than the people who have had to go to work every day in that building and that institution. I don't think anyone would attempt to deny that there have been serious problems with the governance and the administration at the First Nations University of Canada over the last five years. It is important for our funders to remember that there have been people inside the institution, both faculty and students, who have been carrying on this fight every day for five years. We've been calling for the same kinds of changes you have been.
To add to that, I have to also say that while we've had these governance and administrative problems and competencies, to be fair, the integrity of our faculty and of our academic programming has never once been questioned throughout this entire process. In fact, the integrity of the academic programming at our institution and the integrity of the faculty members who teach there has been reaffirmed time and again, and we've been under heavy scrutiny for five years now because of governance and administrative difficulties. Naturally people would want to have a look at our academics as well, and our academic integrity has never been called into question once. This has been reaffirmed time and again by partners such as the Association of Universities and Colleges of Canada, the Canadian Association of University Teachers, and our partner institution, the University of Regina.
To continue on that theme and picking up on something that Diane Adams said a few moment ago, it has been suggested to us that first nations students in the province of Saskatchewan will continue to receive funding and can choose to spend that funding as they see fit at whichever institution they choose to attend. That has been presented to us as a choice that students are allowed to make.
Unfortunately, there are two problems with that scenario. One is that it doesn't open up further choices to the students at all. The students already have the choice of which institution they want to attend. They can go to the University of Regina, they can go to the University of Saskatchewan, they can go elsewhere—or they can come to the First Nations University of Canada. They have that funding already from the federal government through ISSP and they can go wherever they choose to attend. Our students chose to attend our institution. If the doors of the First Nations University of Canada are closed, the students will have fewer choices, not more. That is important to remember.
The second thing I would like to point out about this issue is that our academic programming is unique. The taxpayers of Saskatchewan and Canada have been investing in the First Nations University of Canada for 34 years now. In those 34 years, in spite of underfunding and in spite of difficulties with governance and administration in the past five years, we've been building capacity. To expect that the University of Regina or the University of Saskatchewan could suddenly pick up in the absence of the capacity we've been building for 34 years is patently absurd.
The fact is that our academic programming is unique and can't be duplicated by any other university in Saskatchewan, or anywhere else in the country as a matter of fact. Just as a couple of examples, we have a department of Indian languages, literatures, and linguistics, which is the only program of its kind in the country and in the world in its focus on first nations languages.
As head of the English department, I can speak about the English department most competently, perhaps. We have seven full-time members, five at our Regina campus, one in Prince Albert, and one in Saskatoon. We teach almost exclusively aboriginal Canadian literature and a little bit of the American Indian literature.
Now, that teaching capacity and the expertise gathered in our department over 34 years doesn't exist anywhere else in the country, and this is true of pretty much every one of our departments.
Sorry to our partner here, but there is no one in the University of Regina English department who is qualified to teach first nations literature, Canadian or American. And that's a fact.