Thanks very much for the invitation to provide some input into this very critical report. It's long overdue. I'm glad you're examining this.
We provided a brief earlier today that outlines the contributions that Indspire makes to post-secondary education. Indspire is an indigenous organization that works with governments and many hundreds of donors across Canada to raise funds to provide scholarships and bursaries to indigenous post-secondary students. We would have given this year probably in excess of 7,000 scholarships and bursaries for in excess of $26 million. It's an organization that has become a critical resource for indigenous students.
My remarks won't focus on statistics as much as two historic contexts for this report that I hope you'll consider.
I'll first go to 1967, the year of Confederation. While many were supportive of and very positive about Confederation and Canada's 100th birthday, there was a famous speech put out by Chief Dan George called “A Lament for Confederation”, where he outlined some of his concerns with where Canada was going.
I will quote one of the things he said in that. He said, “I shall grab the instruments of the white man's success—his education, his skills—and with these new tools I shall build my race into the proudest segment of your society.”
At the time within the context of his speech, we know that the policy of enfranchisement was in force, which forced indigenous people to trade membership and registration in their home community for an opportunity to enter into university. This was a choice that very few people could make. This essentially kept us out of the university.
The most significant predictor of entry into university is whether or not your mom and dad went or someone very close to you in your family went. Without the backdrop of many generations of people attending post-secondary education, we were new to this. We are still new to this. If you consider this as an important part of your report, this is only the second generation of our people who have gone to university. We are embracing it.
The second important point occurred in 1972—this is the 50th anniversary and in my view it should be celebrated—which was the famous policy of Indian control of Indian education. It was created by an amalgam of reports and policies that had been produced by all the provinces and territories at the time from the indigenous quarter. They talked about lessons and the philosophy of survival in the 20th century. They said:
Pride encourages us to recognize and use our talents, as well as to master the skills needed to make a living.
Understanding our fellowmen will enable us to meet other Canadians on an equal footing, respecting cultural differences while pooling resources for the common good.
Also, they said we must live in harmony with nature, which “will insure preservation of the balance between man and his environment which is necessary for the future of our planet".
I think this, exactly 50 years later, is what is still guiding indigenous education. It's critical to our thinking today. Of the 30,000-plus indigenous post-secondary students, as I said before, we've embraced this.
Financial need remains the largest barriers to success—my colleague from FNTI has just outlined that in a very specific way—but we are still attending in record numbers. While many students require additional help, we are outstanding in many ways. Organizations like Indspire are supporting our academic excellence.
There is an urgency to indigenous post-secondary education. I can't say this enough. Our young population is not a future burden on society. Our young population represents an opportunity to make an outsized impact on Canadian society. We need to double down now. We are at the margins, but we are moving to the centre. In my view, that movement from the margins to the centre is what reconciliation is all about.
From my own perspective as a former university president in Canada and now with an indigenous education organization, I would say that our challenges are to encourage greater numbers, to inspire students to broaden their degree and career options—we tend to choose the same narrow fields of study—to help our students see graduation as a first step and not a terminal event, and to make academic life better reflect the growing indigenous reality in the post-secondary environment.
Thank you very much for your attention.