Indigenous and Northern Affairs Committee on March 6th, 2023

[Gary Vidal, Conservative, Desnethé—Missinippi—Churchill River, SK]

Okay. I will watch for that target, then.

I'm going to leave it there.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Marc Garneau]

You had about 30 seconds.

[Jamie Schmale, Conservative, Haliburton—Kawartha Lakes—Brock, ON]

Can I take that?

[The Chair, Liberal, Marc Garneau]

You can, if the answer is within 30 seconds.

[Jamie Schmale, Conservative, Haliburton—Kawartha Lakes—Brock, ON]

Okay.

Thank you very much, Minister and Deputy Minister.

Are you telling me and this committee that the two top officials in the department had no idea what was in their departmental plan when it came to setting a target for graduation rates? I just want to be clear.

[Patty Hajdu, Liberal, Thunder Bay—Superior North, ON]

Listen, I have committed that we'll make sure that you have the target by this fall and that you will know what that target is—

[Jamie Schmale, Conservative, Haliburton—Kawartha Lakes—Brock, ON]

You didn't know about it, though. That's what's so concerning. The two top people had no clue that there were targets in your departmental report that needed to be set. Nobody knew about it...into a study in which we're talking about indigenous graduation, which is going down, according to your departmental data.

[Patty Hajdu, Liberal, Thunder Bay—Superior North, ON]

Well, listen, there's a heck of a lot of deflection coming right now from the Conservative side of the table—

[Jamie Schmale, Conservative, Haliburton—Kawartha Lakes—Brock, ON]

I'm taking your data.

[Patty Hajdu, Liberal, Thunder Bay—Superior North, ON]

—who had a decade to do something about this.

[Jamie Schmale, Conservative, Haliburton—Kawartha Lakes—Brock, ON]

This is your information.

[Patty Hajdu, Liberal, Thunder Bay—Superior North, ON]

We lost a decade.

[Jamie Schmale, Conservative, Haliburton—Kawartha Lakes—Brock, ON]

Netflix wasn't a thing when the Conservatives lost power.

[Patty Hajdu, Liberal, Thunder Bay—Superior North, ON]

We lost a decade—

[Jamie Schmale, Conservative, Haliburton—Kawartha Lakes—Brock, ON]

You had eight years.

[Patty Hajdu, Liberal, Thunder Bay—Superior North, ON]

—and I am thrilled that our government—

[Jamie Schmale, Conservative, Haliburton—Kawartha Lakes—Brock, ON]

You're going down, and you don't....

[Patty Hajdu, Liberal, Thunder Bay—Superior North, ON]

—is now funding equitably—

[Jamie Schmale, Conservative, Haliburton—Kawartha Lakes—Brock, ON]

You and the top of your department had no idea that there's a target to be set—

[The Chair, Liberal, Marc Garneau]

I'm going to bring this to an end. The time is up. Thank you, Mr. Schmale.

We will now go to Ms. Atwin for five minutes.

[Jenica Atwin, Liberal, Fredericton, NB]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair, and thank you to the minister and deputy minister for joining us today.

Hopefully, I can get us back on track with my line of questioning. As I've mentioned before, this is very close to my heart. My whole past was involved in indigenous education here in New Brunswick, and for sure I think back to a lot of the things that many of the people I worked with would like me to ask.

The biggest piece, of course, is around the funding gap that existed. I'm really happy to hear that a 70% increase in funding has occurred since 2015. Are you hearing that on the ground? Is that one of the most common things you're hearing as you tour the country? In speaking with those with on-reserve schools or with those who have students attending off-reserve schools, is funding the biggest component that's been missing in this?

[Patty Hajdu, Liberal, Thunder Bay—Superior North, ON]

Thanks, Mrs. Atwin, for your service as an educator.

You're absolutely right, and I fully believe that education is the key that unlocks generational poverty. As someone who was first in my family to graduate with a post-secondary education, it's near and dear to my heart.

I hear two things from communities. One, there is a recognition that there is improved funding for students by 70% since 2015. Let's be clear that we're not talking about 10% or 20% more, but 70% more, on average. We are now at provincial comparability.

However, I also hear that there are still gaps in learning because of the gap having been so neglected for so long. I was talking about a decade of darkness. That was a decade of lost multiple generations of students, who were not funded comparably to their provincial systems and who fell behind. In fact, not only were those school systems not funded; institutes who helped first nations do things like gather data were also defunded. They were starved of the resources they needed so that first nations themselves could make good decisions about how to move forward on education.

What I'm hearing is, “Please, let's not go back there.” We need long-term agreements that are going to solidify this funding so that we never again see a government cut funding for indigenous education or cut funding for indigenous infrastructure or cut funding for indigenous water or all the things that we saw in complete, decrepit decay when we took office in 2015. It's a lot of work and a lot of financial commitment, but first nations communities are doing that work with us. I can tell you that there is a groundswell of change happening. What people fear the most is a return to the past. They fear that if our government isn't around and a Conservative government is elected, they're going to lose those gains.

Quite frankly, Mrs. Atwin, that's why we're working on long-term agreements with first nations, so that they have the runway, the autonomy and the sufficiency of funding to make sure we don't end up in that place again.

[Jenica Atwin, Liberal, Fredericton, NB]

Thank you very much for that answer.

Again, I studied this even before I entered into education and then came to this place. Seeing the growth over the last couple of years has been incredible. We're feeling it in communities across the country.

Of course, we're focusing on how to improve graduation rates and those kinds of outcomes. I'm also wondering, with a focus on excellence in education for indigenous peoples across the country, about this: What is the most effective measure our government can take to increase first nations enrolment in post-secondary education?

[Patty Hajdu, Liberal, Thunder Bay—Superior North, ON]

Thank you very much. That's a really great segue.

I will also say—and I didn't want to lose sight of this—that our commitment to funding Jordan's principle and making sure that every child gets the support through Jordan's principle, ending generations of neglect on behalf of governments at all levels towards first nations children, is also helping with education and retention in school systems and with supports for families who want to make sure their kids can succeed.

In terms of post-secondary education, this is something that, as I mentioned, is near and dear to my heart. In communities that have the capacity—for example, with own-source revenue to augment the supports from the federal government—to ensure that every student who has the ability to go to post-secondary training or education can actually get there and can stay enrolled in those schools, you can see that what actually happens is that people graduate with the skills that are needed to run communities. People come back as nurses, accountants, lawyers, doctors, civil engineers and construction workers, and communities begin to thrive because residents themselves are taking control over their communities and are able to run them in a way that is indigenous-centred and trusted by the communities.

I look at the community of Biigtigong in my own riding, which made a commitment 40 to 50 years ago to ensure that every child who wanted to access post-secondary could. They have a wraparound program whereby they make sure that children are attached to community members, so that if they're struggling while they're away for school, they can connect with community and remind themselves again about why they're doing this and who they are, in a culturally appropriate way. Those students are coming back. Fifty years later, that community has teachers from Biigtigong, nurses from Biigtigong, water operators from Biigtigong and construction workers from Biigtigong. They have a number of economic development opportunities, including the approval of a mine in a joint project with the nearby Town of Marathon.

That's the kind of potential that communities have when we see post-secondary students succeed. It has been a priority for me as the minister to make sure that I impress this on my colleagues: that we need to continue our journey to ensure that the supports are there.

Students are entitled to Canada student loans and grants, which, by the way, we doubled. Children, young people and adults who are in poverty and are first-time applicants for Canada student loans and grants are going to get more money for the tuition aspect and some of the living expenses, but there is often a need for additional supports. That's to make sure we can retain people in environments that oftentimes are very new and different, and are difficult for people to stay in.

[The Chair, Liberal, Marc Garneau]

Thank you.

Over to you, Mrs. Gill, for two and a half minutes.