Indigenous and Northern Affairs Committee on Sept. 23rd, 2016

[The Chair, Liberal, Andy Fillmore]

Ms. Arreak-Kullualik would also like to speak.

Ms. Mike, would you like to respond, as well?

Okay, Jeannie, please go ahead. There is about a minute remaining.

[Jeannie Arreak-Kullualik]

Okay. Thank you very much.

I wanted to say that we had the honour of hosting an Inuit summit on socio-cultural issues a couple of weeks ago. The first day was concentrated on a structured debrief healing session using the timeline of Inuit societal changes and transitions.

That first day served three purposes. One was on healing, because a lot of the elders and residential school survivors told us they never had the chance to feel or grieve their own losses. Another purpose was understanding our own history of self-reliance and our own determination and self-regulation. The third purpose was to have the recent history on why we have the land claims agreement, how the Nunavut government was created, and why we have a clause in our land claims agreement, article 23, on Inuit employment and consultation to ensure that Inuit are consulted when government programs and services are being created through policy or legislation.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Andy Fillmore]

Thank you very much.

The next question is from Romeo Saganash, please.

[Romeo Saganash, NDP, Abitibi—Baie-James—Nunavik—Eeyou, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you to all of our witnesses.

I want to start with Shuvinai Mike. She wanted to answer some of the previous questions, so I might as well start with her.

I listened carefully to your testimony and your story, and I was moved. You talked a lot about culture, language, and your own experience. I think a couple of you talked about our youth living in two worlds, which is definitely a reality. I lived in three worlds. I was born and raised in the bush; then I was sent to residential schools, and then I went on to university.

My first question is to all of you. I think it's an important one for the youth, and we've heard them a lot over the last two days. How do we achieve that balance? How do we do that? You talked about programs in Clyde River, but how do we achieve that balance?

One of the ways that we found in the Cree world, where I'm from in James Bay, is that the school is closed for two weeks in the spring when the geese arrive. The entire village is empty for two weeks, because all the children and youth get to go with their parents. They spend two weeks in the bush and they wait for the geese to arrive. They get to be Cree for two weeks, and only Cree for two weeks, in Cree territory for two weeks, and speak only Cree for two weeks. That helps, I think, and I've seen it.

I first want your thoughts on how to achieve that balance in the north. Then I have a couple of other questions.

[Shuvinai Mike]

I think that's part of what I wrote, especially about decolonizing the education system. We already know that the Nunavut Sivuniksavut program in Ontario is successful, and it's a model, so why aren't the high schools providing that same kind of program, especially in Nunavut?

If only I had more time.

When I was doing my master's degree, I wrote a paper on why Inuit students struggle in grade 10. I was also an Inuktitut teacher at the high school here. I'm only going to speak about the high school here, because that's my experience. I need more people to understand.

I know it might be different now, but there were three systems: academic level, majority non-Inuit, and general program. You didn't even have physics. In the sciences, there was some general programming. You weren't provided the same programming as in the academic level. In the general program, you could graduate, but you wouldn't be able to go to college level.

I'm only stressing these because my goal is to decolonize. We need to have schools that promote healthy life and honour different cultures, not just one that's dynamic and majority so that we're a minority in our own land. Our school system is also, for the most part, not majority Inuit-relevant. This is still going on. It's been 40 years now. It was over 20 years ago, and I was a teacher for 23 years.

We need consultative workshops. We need history to be taught in a way that is relevant to the students. We need students be able to have more pride, and not just those students who are academics or those who are more privileged than others. A lot of students are falling through the cracks because of that. I'm saying decolonizing the existing system would be the way to go.

[The Chair, Liberal, Andy Fillmore]

There's about a minute remaining.

[James Arreak]

I just wanted to highlight that while the erosion of our language is a big concern, we do have programs that are working. One is a day care facility in Iqaluit that is an Inuktitut day care. When children are allowed to be respected and cared for in their language, it does something good for them in terms of being confident in who they are. When they go to kindergarten, they're totally different people. In terms of a positive influence, that's been a good program that we know is working. That's something I wanted to highlight to the committee.

[Witness speaks in Inuktitut]

[The Chair, Liberal, Andy Fillmore]

I guess we're done there. You have 15 seconds if you can make use of that.

[Romeo Saganash, NDP, Abitibi—Baie-James—Nunavik—Eeyou, QC]

I have a very quick question. A lot of these things are already provided for in our different agreements. Are there implementation issues that you have right now with the federal government?

[James Arreak]

Generally, there are. We always have implementation concerns, due to the lack of implementation policy that pushes both levels of government to commit to any kind of implementation of their federal obligations as far as the land claims are concerned.

[The Chair, Liberal, Andy Fillmore]

The next question is from Gary Anandasangaree.

[Gary Anandasangaree, Liberal, Scarborough—Rouge Park, ON]

James, I would like to ask you to just finish that, and maybe elaborate on what you started.

[James Arreak]

Yes. In terms of implementation, there has been very little implementation, as far as we're concerned. There are genuine efforts, but really what we're seeing.... I think the land claims coalition is pushing for some new ideas that are being proposed to the federal government that would help the government focus in terms of being led by a policy that helps the government focus its resources towards their obligations. I think there are 26-plus land claims in Canada, and we fit into the modern treaty section. The modern treaties are separate, but we get to co-manage the resources. Also, there are different themes that differentiate us.

However, in terms of trying to work with both levels of government, it's a daily effort, and sometimes it's like trying to pull teeth when we try to convince people that a systemic issue exists, that a barrier exists for Inuit. With the issues that we present before you, it's sometimes very difficult. We appreciate the opportunity, yet it's a real challenge at this time.

[Gary Anandasangaree, Liberal, Scarborough—Rouge Park, ON]

Thank you.

I just want to probe a bit further on education. I know you had mentioned in your presentation that there was an inherent right to education in Inuit culture and language. I know you mentioned earlier the need for decolonizing the education system. Putting all this together, what specific measures need to be taken within the current education system that will allow for higher attainment, a higher success rate within the system as a whole, and allow young people to go on to post-secondary education?

One of the things you also mentioned was this 95%:80% ratio, but in order to have an increased level of numbers within the population, they will need to have the training to fill those numbers, so it's almost like a never-ending cycle that we need to break.

[The Chair, Liberal, Andy Fillmore]

James, I'll just mention that Jeannie has her hand up as well, so could you share the four minutes remaining?

[James Arreak]

I'll just quickly say that we see education as a tool to help us keep and enhance who we are as a people. We want to use education as a tool to keep our language, to keep our culture, and so forth. I just wanted to add that. Maybe I'll let my partner respond further.

[Jeannie Arreak-Kullualik]

Thank you.

One of the things NTI has proposed to the Department of Education is to create an Inuktitut language stream. We had three streams. The Qulliq stream is predominantly Inuktitut. We had three different models, and we are proposing now to create an Inuktitut language immersion stream.

For Inuit whose first language is not Inuktitut, we would introduce them to it and immerse them in learning. We would also immerse their parents in it, encouraging them to speak more Inuktitut and learn more words. We would also have a cultural component in there on why it's so important to learn.

One of the things the elders told us when we had the Inuit summit was that we need to have trauma-informed administrators and principals and teachers at schools instead of sending or reporting a student to family services for foster care or something like that. We would understand why they misbehave, why they get emotional, why a few things trigger their emotions—trauma.

I think we have already communicated and built the case as to why these would be very important, except we're also being told a different message, which is that the low graduation rate is because Inuktitut is our first language. That's the reverse of what we are trying to do. If you have the language foundation, research studies have found that you can learn more and achieve more academically.

I'll just end it there. Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Andy Fillmore]

Thanks.

There are about 50 seconds left.

[Gary Anandasangaree, Liberal, Scarborough—Rouge Park, ON]

In terms of post-secondary education, what would be your vision for that at the local setting?

[James Arreak]

I'll start.

As I said earlier, I think it would be helpful if you as the federal government and we as the NTI would commit to work together to develop a curriculum that would help us shape the kind of curriculum that would help our students not only develop their academic skills but also understand, using language and culture, how they can become successful people who can contribute to a healthy society.

[The Chair, Liberal, Andy Fillmore]

Thank you.

We'll now move into a round of five-minute questions.

The first five-minute question comes from Arnold Viersen.

[Arnold Viersen, Conservative, Peace River—Westlock, AB]

Thank you all for being here today.

My question is also probably for James. It's specifically on education, something we talk about a lot around here.

I guess I'll start with choice and competition within education. Is that something that is explored? I know that just within my own community there's often great division or diversity of thought on who should run it, where it should go, and these kinds of things. In the past in Alberta, 10 or 15 years ago, we had a very broad spectrum of education: home-schooling that was completely parent-driven, independent schools, charter schools, public schools, public Catholic schools, public Christian schools. It was all over the place. There was some concern that we were sending several different messages, but we noticed that over the long term, the level of education went up overall. We had different streams, but they all seemed to compete with each another and everything went up.

Are there in Nunavut—and I'm sure even within Inuit communities—different thoughts on the goal of education and these kinds of things? Is there any avenue for a parent to say no, they don't want their child to go to that school or that they'd rather home-school them or send them to a rural and remote school, or send them to some boarding school somewhere in the U.K. or something like that? Are there those kinds of opportunities?

[James Arreak]

Let me just respond this way.

As you were flying in, you probably saw the visible lack of infrastructure. In terms of that concern, that quickly tells you about choices. Do I have restaurants to go to here? You can probably count your options on one hand.

When it comes to education, I can point to only one option that we have. In that regard, I will just make the point that the lack of information that we parents—

[Arnold Viersen, Conservative, Peace River—Westlock, AB]

Is there an appetite on the part of parents to even consider different options?

[James Arreak]

Going back to Clyde River, there is a cultural school there that is doing remarkable things for young men who are in need. They go there absolutely broken and needing help, and then after a couple of years of going through there, they are transformed. They realize they'd been convicted of what they'd done wrong, and I think that's been helpful to those individuals.

In terms of whether there is an appetite, yes, I would say there is absolutely an appetite. People are keen. One of the panellists has been a teacher for a long time; she has a wealth of knowledge. There are others I know who have created their own in-class curricula that they have researched themselves with local elders, some of whom have passed on. They've developed a way to teach, for example, how to make a traditional kayak. I think that implies that there is interest.