Indigenous and Northern Affairs Committee on Feb. 26th, 2019

[Dan Vandal, Liberal, Saint Boniface—Saint Vital, MB]

Okay. Are there other members in the actual school board who are community-based? Are they appointed by you or by the organization?

[Shirley Fontaine]

In terms of our governance structure, we have a seven-member board of directors. On that board, we have two representatives from those 10 first nations that are part of our school system. We're also setting up local advisory committees at the community level so that there's a reporting relationship. We've also talked about establishing a governance advisory council of the 10 first nations. That's something we're working on currently.

[Dan Vandal, Liberal, Saint Boniface—Saint Vital, MB]

Okay.

This study is about community capacity-building and retention of talent in the delivery of your services. What are the biggest challenges in that respect, in retaining talent and building capacity?

[Shirley Fontaine]

One of the challenges we have faced historically is lower salary grids, but we've been able to address that. We're a bit closer in terms of meeting provincial comparability for salary grids. That's helping us a bit.

The other thing we've been looking at is our long-term training needs. We're developing a 10-year first nations education human resource strategy for Manitoba, because a lot of our people are aging. If you look at us, you'll see that we are older—

[Voices]

Oh, oh!

[Shirley Fontaine]

—so we need to train a new cohort of teachers. We need to train a new cohort of early childhood educators. We need to train 20-year-olds to take over the positions that we currently have, because many of our staff in our resource centre are in their fifties and sixties, and there are even some in their seventies. We do need to look at training a new group of people to take over the important functions that are required for a first nations education system.

[Dan Vandal, Liberal, Saint Boniface—Saint Vital, MB]

That's excellent.

Mr. Odjick, first of all, I did take a tour of your region with William Amos. Is Barriere Lake part of your tribal council?

[Norm Odjick]

Barriere Lake is in the second Algonquin tribal council, but we had a meeting last week through the nation rebuilding program to start working together, all of the 11 Algonquin communities, so hopefully we'll be collaborating a lot more closely in the near future.

[Dan Vandal, Liberal, Saint Boniface—Saint Vital, MB]

Then Lac-Simon is, but Barriere Lake is not?

[Norm Odjick]

Yes, that's correct.

[Dan Vandal, Liberal, Saint Boniface—Saint Vital, MB]

Okay.

I have the same question for you, Mr. Odjick. Relative to the focus of this capacity-building study, what are your biggest challenges?

[Norm Odjick]

It depends on the community. For us at the tribal council level, it took us 16 months, as I said, to get a new engineer. We try to be competitive with the salary, but in 2013 we got cut by 15% on top of zero indexation. We had worked on a national study for the tribal council program to look at the funding.

Back in 2007, we were already behind by 46%. I don't want to guess how far we're behind now, especially after another 15% cut on top of it. For us, it's about being competitive and offering competitive salaries. I give my employees the best working conditions I can. We work extra hours and they get Friday afternoons off in the summer and things like that.

It's hard to stay competitive when your purchasing power is so diminished. I hope that eventually the tribal council program will be looked at, because it has been an effective program. We do help the communities a lot with their capacity-building, but our ability to do so is severely limited now.

[The Chair, Liberal, MaryAnn Mihychuk]

Thank you, Dan.

I'm going to share a couple minutes of Dan's time.

In Manitoba, we have many communities that are still remote. In fact, Island Lake has 20,000 people with no road access. How does that impact learning?

You were sharing with me an example of permanent deafness...caused by the remoteness, really, and we know that, on average, graduation rates may be lower. I've seen some numbers still as low as 25%. Perhaps you could give us some context of how isolation in these isolated reserves relates to education and what the effects are of being isolated?

[Dr. Donald Shackel]

In terms of isolation, I think the general socio-economic conditions in the community have had huge impacts on learning. The example I was sharing with you, within the Island Lake area alone.... It's hard to believe, but we've only had an audiologist for the last year. When our audiologist went into these northern first nation communities, they found rates of hearing loss of up to 25% of the entire student population.

Up until now, these children have never had amplification systems and many children have not had hearing aids. The children who live with deafness have not had access to American Sign Language, so how do you succeed in education when you can't hear what the teacher is saying? They're eliminated from any possibility of success within that system, so it's about providing those supports, as Lorne Keeper said, using economies of scale, and training people from those communities.

I used to travel up into the Island Lake communities 20 to 25 years ago and it was all non-first nations specialists going in. They would do a quick assessment, leave and charge the communities an incredible amount of money. Our leaders and our education director said, “Let's stop that. Let's build the capacity in the community. Let's train local people.” You go to a community and say, “We would like you to have your own psychologists.” Our school psychology program, out of the University of Calgary, is training 15 first nation school psychologists, and four of those individuals are from Island Lake.

We're so proud. I call St. Theresa Point the school psychology capital of Manitoba. They're going to have their own psychologists who speak the language and will be able to deconstruct that western concept of psychology, which tends just to label and create deficits for first nation learners.

Isolation is a very crucial factor, and having worked in those communities for years, I know it's really important to build that local capacity.

[The Chair, Liberal, MaryAnn Mihychuk]

Thank you.

I think we've run out of time on that window of questioning.

Now, we move to MP Phil McColeman.

Oh, it's MP Cathy McLeod.

[Cathy McLeod, Conservative, Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo, BC]

We can share.

[Voices]

Oh, oh!

[Cathy McLeod, Conservative, Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo, BC]

Before I get going, I understand that all the parties did agree to defer the opposition's ability to put in a report on our last study for one week. I wanted to make sure it was on the record because it was by motion. Thank you for that. I know we're heading into a two-week constituency period, so it is a nice opportunity to do that. Again, I appreciate it when committees are co-operative and supportive.

Mr. Odjick, you certainly perked my ears up when you talked about the financial management board. Everything I've always heard has been really positive, in terms of the great work they're doing and the really important capacity-building throughout the country.

I think maybe it speaks to the tension of models. When is it best for funding to go directly to communities? When do we need first nations-led institutes that provide services across the country? Could you flesh out that piece? As I said, I have been a huge supporter, so your comments were surprising. Talk a bit more about that.

[Norm Odjick]

A lot of the role they are being funded for now overlaps with what we're supposed to do. A big part of our role at the tribal council is to help communities with their capacity, but we're shoved aside. Our funding is cut. Meanwhile, there's a big injection to that. There's a disconnect between the financial management board and the communities. They have regional offices, but they don't collaborate as closely with the communities as we do.

For example, every year I have to put in a work plan that the communities sign off on. When I hand in my report, the communities sign off on it. I'm accountable to them. I don't think the financial management board is as accountable to them. They are taking on a role now that's even higher. With the 10-year agreements, the communities are more or less going to report to them.

We're there; we exist. We're close to the communities. We can help them. We know what their capacity-building needs are, but we're shoved aside. That's my problem with it. It's not with the organization per se. It's the fact that we're shoved aside, while someone else gets the funding that we desperately need. I think there's a role for both, but it needs to be looked at what the two roles are.

[Cathy McLeod, Conservative, Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo, BC]

As I said, I know there has been a lot of support and great work, but you just raised a new point I hadn't heard before. I appreciate your comments about it.

I'm going to ask everyone.... Unfortunately, the indigenous language bill didn't get to this committee. Does anyone have any comments? Have you looked at it? Do you have any comments about it? I know many of us are sitting on both committees, so I certainly had hoped it would come here. I would appreciate any insight you might have on that bill.

It looks like Ms. Fontaine wants to make a few comments.

[Shirley Fontaine]

I have participated in the discussions with the Assembly of First Nations, in terms of the technical discussions related to the indigenous languages act. We see this as an important part of reconciliation. We see it as an important part of implementing the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, and we see it as first nation languages taking their rightful place in Canada.

We're portrayed as a bilingual country, and so we are, but historically our languages were spoken here for thousands of years. It's important for Canada to recognize the importance of our languages and the role they play in terms of building identity for our students, healing our communities and our families and creating a better future for our people. We have a lot of hope, in terms of seeing the indigenous languages act being passed. Canada, I guess, would be at the forefront.... It is the International Year of Indigenous Languages. If Canada passes this particular piece of legislation, I think it would be seen as a world leader in recognizing the importance of indigenous languages.

We do have some concerns with some of the current wording. For example, we believe that any development related to languages has to be first nation-led. There has to be protection of first nations' intellectual property. We don't want to see universities or provinces controlling our languages. They need to work in partnership with first nations in promoting the expansion and use of languages, revitalizing our languages and making sure that students are learning our languages in the future. We believe they are integral to our identity.

[Cathy McLeod, Conservative, Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo, BC]

From your presentation, it sounded like you were doing significant work around language already. Do you perceive this as having any practical influence, in terms of what you do and how you do it? It does sound like you're in the forefront of the work that has been happening.

[The Chair, Liberal, MaryAnn Mihychuk]

We need to wrap up really quickly.

[Shirley Fontaine]

We see a need to train more language teachers. That's something we're developing a strategy for. We're going to develop more curriculum materials for the teaching of our languages. We're also going to be encouraging our day cares and head start programs to provide the language nest program—an immersion-type program you may be familiar with—and also having K-to-12 language immersion opportunities for the future. We're quite excited about the potential for more language programming in the future.

[The Chair, Liberal, MaryAnn Mihychuk]

Thank you.

We have a very short question from MP Mike Bossio.