Of course, whether you're native or non-native, we all want our kids to go off to college or university. That's a motherhood statement.
In my experience in Osoyoos, it wasn't until we started a construction company. We never had one journeyman carpenter before 1986. Then, once we started our own construction company, all of a sudden some of the guys, who were in their thirties at the time, wanted to go back to school. Now we've got seven journeymen carpenters.
It wasn't until we had our own winery on the reserve that two aboriginal people, one a band member and one from another first nation, went to New Zealand and went to Australia. Now they've got their degree in winemaking.
It wasn't until we had our own hotel on the reserve, Spirit Ridge, that now some of our people want to take hotel management courses.
It wasn't until we had our golf course, back in 1995, when we took over an old lease from the 1960s, that some of our people decided to go to California and Arizona to get their golf pro management certificate or degree.
That says to me that my people need to see economic development opportunities. Many first nations people don't feel the non-native companies will hire them. That's my experience. Why didn't we have any carpenters before? There have been wineries in the Okanagan going back to the fifties. Why didn't we have any people interested in going to Australia before to be winemakers? Why didn't we have people interested in hotel management? There have been hotels around the Okanagan for a hundred years. My people need to see economic development; then they get inspired. Then they think they have a chance and an opportunity, and they have hope. That's the experience at Osoyoos and that's the experience for many first nations.
Why do 37 different first nations come to Osoyoos to find work? There are golf courses everywhere else in the country; they could go to work at those golf courses, but they want to work at a first nation golf course. That's why they come to Osoyoos. They want to work in a first nation company. That's why they come to Osoyoos.
I always tell people, and I tell the National Chief this as well, that if you're going to say you support education, that's such a “duh” statement. That's a motherhood statement. I tell him to support economic development, because every educated person I know wants a job. After you get over the romanticism of what education is all about, to me education is to make yourself employable. That's why you get educated. That's why you get a trade or get a degree: you want a job. You want a resumé you can throw on the table at somebody.
Again, to me, the purpose of education comes back to the word “job”. If you're going to say you support more post-secondary education, then I tell the National Chief to say he supports economic development.
Once we start having economic development and start that ball rolling across this country on these 2,500 Indian reserves, you're going to see the graduation rates climb. It's like a middle-class neighbourhood; you're going to see our people earning a middle-class income. You're going to see our kids raised in households where at least one family member has a job. We won't need this Ministry of Children and Family Development coming and apprehending our native kids because nobody in that house is working.
That's the biggest reason those kids are at risk. The biggest dysfunction in that household is that the mom or dad isn't working; they're on welfare.
To me, welfare is the biggest problem among first nations. One former chief—he passed away—said to me that the worst thing the non-native people brought to our reserves was welfare. It was the very worst thing. Now we have this welfare cycle and this welfare mentality that took a hundred years to get to, but when people start seeing economic development in Ontario on Sharon's reserve, or in Don's area, or in Membertou or in Osoyoos or in Saskatoon, with one of the best golf courses, the Dakota Dunes, that's what inspires the aboriginal people.
That's what's going to get our people out of jail. That's what's going to stop our kids from being apprehended: when we put an economic focus to the Department of Indian Affairs and we start picking away at all of this 98% social service spending and the government stops telling us that our economy's discretionary.
You would never say that to your constituents. You would never say that to each other—that the Canadian economy is discretionary, the Alberta economy is discretionary, the Ontario economy is discretionary. That's the problem and the mindset we've grown up with. We've got to get rid of this dependency mindset. Independence only happens through creating your own jobs and making your own money as a family or as a nation.
