Indigenous and Northern Affairs Committee on March 29th, 2023

[The Chair, Liberal, Jenica Atwin]

I call this meeting to order.

Good afternoon, everyone. Welcome to the 57th meeting of the Standing Committee on Indigenous and Northern Affairs.

We acknowledge that we meet on the unceded, unsurrendered territory of the Algonquin Anishinabe peoples.

Today's meeting is taking place in a hybrid format, pursuant to the House order of Thursday, June 23, 2022. Members are attending in person in the room and remotely using the Zoom application.

The proceedings will be made available via the House of Commons website. Just so that you are aware, the webcast will always show the person speaking rather than the entire committee.

For those participating virtually, I would like to outline a few rules to follow. You may speak in the official language of your choice. Interpretation services are available for this meeting in French, English and Inuktitut. You have the choice at the bottom of your screen of either floor, Inuktitut, English or French. Please select your language now.

If interpretation is lost at any time, please inform me immediately, and we will ensure that interpretation is properly restored before resuming the proceedings.

For members participating in person, proceed as you usually would when the whole committee is meeting in person in a committee room.

Before speaking, please wait until I recognize you by name. If you are on video conference, please click on the microphone icon to unmute yourself. For those in the room, your mike will be controlled as normal by the proceedings and verification officer.

A reminder that all comments by members and witnesses should be addressed through the chair.

When speaking, please speak slowly and clearly. When you're not speaking, your mike should be on mute.

With regard to a speaking list, the committee clerk and I will do the best we can to maintain a consolidated order of speaking for all members, whether they are participating virtually or in person.

Pursuant to Standing Order 108(2) and the motion adopted by the committee on November 21, 2022, the committee is resuming its important study on improving the graduation rates of indigenous students.

Today in our first panel we welcome Lois Philipp, former teacher and administrator, in person. Thank you for joining us.

We welcome David Rattray, former teacher, by video conference, and Helen Bobiwash, accountant, also by video conference.

Thank you so much for giving us your time today. You'll each have five minutes for your opening remarks.

Ms. Philipp, you'll start us off. You have five minutes.

[Lois Philipp, Former Teacher and Administrator, As an Individual]

Thank you.

I'm a little bit nervous. I've never done this before. It's nice to see a friendly face in the crowd.

I am from Fort Providence and I've spent 20 years working in a school that I first attended in K to 8. When I attended, it was called Elizabeth Ward School, named after the first nun in the NWT to run a residential school. At that time, it was still heavily influenced by the Catholic church, so for a lot of my education, from K to eight, I was a federal day school student.

This is very much a story with my community at the heart of all I do, what we did to make it a community school and how we need to get back to that.

Right now our school is struggling because of the pandemic, because of the challenges that have emerged over the last few years. However, we all intuitively know that improving graduation rates for indigenous students in both the K-to-12 system and at post-secondary levels would have tremendous benefits in terms of the socio-health indicators in indigenous communities and on the overall GDP indicators in Canada to the tune of billions of dollars.

Such a basic statement is mired in 157 years of colonialism. How do we look at the challenges without understanding the conversations needed to include the breadth of institutional policies that govern our communities?

I'll occasionally look at my school photo from my grade 7-8 class and reflect on the 17 or 18 students who were in my class. Only four of us graduated, and the other three were non-indigenous. Then I flash forward 40 years. Five years ago, from Fort Providence, a community of 800, we had 23 post-secondary students in 11 different post-secondary institutions. The cornerstone of this success was our extensive on-the-land programming, our Dene language immersion program and alternative programming.

One of the things that carries me through my days are the challenges I see and the solutions I seek. I have read a lot about the success of programs elsewhere that have piqued my curiosity. With that mindset, when I moved into administration in 2004, I looked at what we could build upon to make it a better fit in the community.

At that point, our students in grades 3, 6 and 9 wrote the Alberta achievement tests, but I had trouble mentally wrapping my head around a test that was characterized by failure. Why would I want students to write a test that they struggled with? It's not that they were incapable of it but that they were not ready for it. Out of this, we began our Dene Zhatie immersion program, expanding from kindergarten to grade 3.

One of the frustrations I carried as we began the immersion program was that there were loads of funds available if I had wanted to do a French language program, but I had to beg, borrow and steal to implement an indigenous language program.

Fort Providence is the site of the first residential school in the NWT. Our trauma is carried back to Confederation in 1867.

Indigenous languages were integral to what we did, and from this we moved into a year-round schooling calendar so that a robust land-based school program was created. From this, there was buy-in from the community and increased levels of attendance.

At the height of what we did, and where we had our most success, was our K-to-3 students began the semester, which ran from the Friday after the August long weekend until the Friday before the Thanksgiving weekend, outside in a camp by the river. Dene Zhatie was the language of instruction, and in the end, classes focused on the language around numeracy and the science of a land-based curriculum. These students would spend two weeks in the winter at our camp about five kilometres outside the community, being transferred daily by snowmobile, again honouring the cyclical nature of the community. We did the same in the spring at another camp in the opposite direction.

In grade 4 we began to bring our students out for multi-day trips on the land, where they camped out. The students would spend a week every year out on the river with elders, hearing the stories about where they came from. The elders were sent out with the instruction that they needed to tell the stories that grounded our students in place, and they needed to live by the rhythms of the spring. If hunters wanted to get up at four or five in the morning to go out, they needed to bring the kids.

We did this in August for our grade 5-6 class and in June for our grade 4-5 class. We also sent them to a winter camp about 20 kilometres downriver from the community, camping in -20°C to -30°C weather, setting traps, setting nets and learning basic survival skills. In the spring, they spent a week or two at the spring camp down in the opposite direction.

In our junior high program, we had our young men participate in a rites of passage camp and then go out on a moose hunt. Our young women then had their rites of passage camp and were ready to fix and prepare any moose that were harvested. With a successful moose hunt, the class would be drummed back into the community and the meat distributed to community members. In the winter, they also spent a week down at Horn River, setting traps and nets and spending time with skilled community members.

If I'm going too fast, please let me know.

[The Chair, Liberal, Jenica Atwin]

I'm so sorry, Ms. Philipp; you can add more, perhaps during the question-and-answer period, but I have to move on to the other witnesses.

[Lois Philipp]

Okay.

At this point, they were given the opportunity to participate in some of the longer programs. When our kids reached junior high, we would send them out on a Friday and bring them back the following Sunday so we knew they had two safe weekends when they were safe and out learning.

In our high school program, we offered experiential science courses that were on the land for anywhere from three to six weeks. These were usually done in August and September. We would also organize multi-day canoe trips, wilderness first aid courses, firearms safety courses and canoe trip certification.

[The Chair, Liberal, Jenica Atwin]

I'm so sorry, Ms. Philipp; I'm going to cut you off.

[Lois Philipp]

Okay.

[The Chair, Liberal, Jenica Atwin]

Thank you.

We'll go now to David Rattray by video conference for five minutes. Thank you.

[David Rattray, Retired Teacher, As an Individual]

Thank you for inviting me.

I'm a Tahltan elder, teacher, principal, district principal, counsellor and cultural teacher. I'm going to talk about a couple of topics that we really don't like talking about. I've worked with over 1,000 to 2,000 indigenous kids, and from their perspective, they have four things that they believe contribute to their failing.

The first is pain at home. The second is choosing friends who are hurting. The third is that the school system doesn't know how to deal with them, and the fourth is that they give up hope in themselves.

From my perspective, there are two critical issues that must be addressed at the school level if we are to improve education for indigenous students.

The first is that as indigenous people, we must break our code of silence, acknowledging the huge impact that intergenerational trauma has on many of our community members. Today we hurt each other way more than anybody else does, and this is something we don't even like to talk about, let alone address.

The second issue is that the school system doesn't know how to prepare indigenous youth to be emotionally ready to learn. They don't understand this intergenerational trauma and its impact.

There was a study done back in the late 1990s, the ACE study, adverse childhood experiences. This study looked at the relationship between 10 different adverse childhood experiences and their impact on health later in life. Some of them included abuse, neglect, witnessing domestic violence, incarceration, addictions and so on. If a child experiences four or more of these adverse childhood experiences, they are 32 times more likely to have learning and behavioural problems in school—32 times more. As a counsellor and as a teacher, I have worked with numerous indigenous students who had seven or more of these. This intergenerational trauma shapes the lives of many—not all—indigenous students, and it needs to be addressed by the indigenous leaders and the various levels of the educational and political systems. We watch suicides, drugs, alcohol, anger, violence. These are all surface symptoms of this intergenerational trauma that we do not like to talk about.

I taught in Telegraph Creek, which is in my nation that my mother was from, in northwestern British Columbia. We created an exciting and successful learning environment for all students—“we” being the community, the staff and the students.

There is something that I created in indigenous pedagogy that I call the four goals of indigenous education.

Goal number one is emotional needs and safety. Again, most—not all—indigenous students live in traumatized homes. Their limbic systems are in a state of alert arousal and can be easily triggered by sensory experiences. For learning to happen, their limbic systems must be calmed down. One of the ways that I was taught growing up was gentle approaches to trauma. It's beautiful to see; it's a cornerstone.

The second one is creating belonging environments. It's a safe place to be for everyone. It's relational. There's a spirit of peace. It's fun. It's family orientated, that kind of thing. When I look at school systems, I see what I call “almost belonging” environments instead of belonging. An “almost belonging” environment is where the teacher is still in control in the traditional sense of the word. A belonging environment shifts and looks at “How do I help this human being succeed?” One of the keys to that is looking for their beauty. When you look for beauty in a human being, it's awesome to watch how they respond.

The third goal, as someone already mentioned, is the creation of a culturally rich environment that belongs to the community you're in, but there's another piece to it. I call it bicultural education. It's the ability to teach someone to walk in two worlds. I can go out and hunt moose in snowshoes that I made, kill a moose, drag it back in, prepare it and tan the hide. I can do all that stuff, but I can also apply for a $300,000 grant and nail it. That's bicultural. I'm walking in both worlds.

Once these three are done, the fourth one—academics—soars. This is because they feel safe and they feel they belong. The academics take off. That can be done in the current system.

Thank you for listening.

[The Chair, Liberal, Jenica Atwin]

Thank you very much, Mr. Rattray.

We'll now go to Ms. Bobiwash by video conference for five minutes.

[Helen Bobiwash, Accountant, Kinoomaadziwin Education Body]

Meegwetch. Nakurmiik. Merci.

Thank you for the opportunity to share lessons learned from first nations participating in the Anishinabek Nation Education Agreement.

I join you today as a result of federal investment in my education. I am a lifelong first nations learner. I am an independent accountant, a fellow of CPA Ontario, a fiscal negotiator for the Anishinabek Education System and a member of the Thessalon First Nation.

The Anishinabek Nation Education Agreement is the first self-government agreement in Ontario. It came into effect on April 1, 2018. It involves 23 participating first nations. They are situated in an area ranging from Aamjiwnaang First Nation on the southern tip of Lake Huron and northwest to Biinjitiwaabik Zaaging Anishinaabek, north of Lake Superior. Participating first nations operate 13 first nations schools. There are two secondary and 11 elementary schools. They also send their students to schools in 21 provincial school boards.

Low graduation rates and the outcomes of indigenous students are a direct result of colonialism and federal legislation and policies aimed at extinguishing indigenous peoples in Canada. Improving education outcomes for first nations peoples requires additional investment to overcome the legacy of racist legislation and policies and to address the unique costs of first nations.

Incorporating indigenous language and culture in learning environments is fundamental to improving achievement among first nations students. This includes daily delivery of indigenous language classes, immersion programming and land-based learning. It also involves documenting languages that are almost lost in some communities.

Digital exclusion is a significant issue in our communities. Increasingly, broadband Internet and accessible technology must be considered fundamental rights. First nations schools and students require affordable technology and Internet access. However, first nations have marginal access to Internet services, and for many families it is cost-prohibitive to bring them into their homes.

Teachers and school staff are on the front lines, witnessing the mental health needs of first nation students. School personnel must be equipped to support the mental health of students in the school environment. They require resources and tools to respond to students' needs.

The costs to support special education are ever increasing. Participating first nations of the Anishinabek Education System report that 45% to 55% of their students require special education accommodations. First nations are seeing increasing numbers of students with autism and in utero opiate exposure. Federal investment in first nations special education funding isn't keeping pace with increasing costs, and this must change.

Education sectoral self-governing bodies also require additional investment to improve education outcomes. Sufficient governance funding is required to carry out additional responsibilities under self-governing education systems for both the participating first nations and the coordinating body.

It is essential to provide sufficient investment for data governance. Sectoral self-governing education systems must develop and manage data and use it to make decisions for the support and benefit of student achievement. Investment in a long-term longitudinal study is essential to measuring the long-term outcomes of the education system.

Finally, education capital is important, particularly for schools, teacherages, transportation vehicles, supporting infrastructure, operations and maintenance. Without the ability to invest in education capital, first nations are unable to fully exercise their jurisdiction in education.

Meegwetch.

[The Chair, Liberal, Jenica Atwin]

Thank you very much, Ms. Bobiwash.

We'll now proceed to our round of questions, beginning with the Conservatives.

We have Mr. Bob Zimmer for six minutes.

[Bob Zimmer, Conservative, Prince George—Peace River—Northern Rockies, BC]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

My questions will be for David Rattray. David, welcome to the committee.

Your list of answers to the questions has been lengthy. It's been hard to even keep up and take notes, David, but the one thing I'll say is—it's a little because of your grey hair and a little because I used to work with you, many years ago—that you've been at this for a long time. I used to watch you care for students who were struggling, and you managed to bridge the gap and have these kids go on to succeed in their lives. I know that's the joy of a teacher, but I saw that you were especially good at what you did.

In going through your list, there's so much to say, but I'm going to ask you a bit more of a general question: If you were the Minister of Indigenous Affairs—I know you've done this on a small scale, David, because I see what you do—how would you bring what you said to us...? How would you bring that up to the minister and...? Let's say you were the minister. In the first 100 days, what would you do to change the direction of education for indigenous communities in Canada?

It's a big question.

[David Rattray]

It's nice to start with a simple question like that.

[Voices]

Oh, oh!

[David Rattray]

The difficulty we're facing is that we keep silent about the trauma we're inflicting on our people, the intergenerational trauma stuff. Holding forums around trauma, education and community needs are the kinds of discussions that need to be held.

There's another piece of it that is very difficult: When someone divulges, we have a culture wherein we attack the person who has been abused and we protect the abuser. We have all of these very powerful structures in our communities such that we're out to not deal with the trauma. We need the ability to be open, honest and transparent about intergenerational trauma. Hey, if we're going to help aboriginal kids, we have to hold talks about intergenerational trauma. Do we have to do it in a rough or rude way? No. We can come and say, “Okay, our kids are hurting. How can we help? How can the school system or political system come to open up this very serious problem?” It's closed right now. We don't talk about it.

On the news, we see drug and alcohol issues and suicide. That's not the problem; the problem is underneath. It's the trauma we're inflicting. We have to be able to open up dialogues in a gentle way. I'm totally against saying, “We have to talk about sexual and spousal abuse, and community abuse.” That's not the way. We have to come in and talk with the community leaders. There are two types of leaders in our communities. There are the political leaders and the unofficial leaders. How do we get them talking about it? It's “Hey, your community is hurting. How can we help?”

Then, for God's sake, help.

[Bob Zimmer, Conservative, Prince George—Peace River—Northern Rockies, BC]

Thank you, David.

Again, over the years, I watched how—we talked together—you did that, and others around you. I remember Bev and so many kids we got.... We could probably name similar students whom we both taught, whom I still remember and who had heaps of promise. In some ways, they got derailed along the way, but I've also had students who were challenged during high school come and say, “Mr. Zimmer, guess what? I'm a welder now. You taught me how to weld, and I'm enjoying life.” They're having kids and families and succeeding in that next part of their lives.

I know it's perhaps too short a time to fully develop the answer to what you're saying we need to do, but I think that your being so honest and upfront with us will hopefully start the conversation in a good way.

Perhaps I'll ask you this, David, even breaking it down into high school, as an example: Using a high school, where we both taught, how would it look different, in a high school? Would there be extra supports for students?

I know it goes beyond that. It goes into families and much more beyond the four walls of a school. Where would we start?

[David Rattray]

It starts by looking at how you create belonging in schools and how you create a place for the limbic system where these kids who come to school are safe. In Telegraph Creek, that's what we did. We found ways to make these kids feel that they were safe and that they belonged. We did all kinds of stuff that focused on how to show these kids that we cared and on how to put the power and the responsibility on the community to help. When you look at it, community help is critical.

It's about changing the mindsets. When you look for beauty in kids, it's a whole different way of seeing kids. I can tell you hundreds of stories about finding beauty, but I'll give you one quick one.

This 15-year-old came in and looked at me: “I hate effing counsellors.” I said, “You're going to get kicked out for fighting.” He said, “Yeah; so?” I said, “Tell me about some fights.” When he asked why, I said, “I just want to see how good you are.” He started to describe some fights, and I was thinking, “Where's his beauty...? Where's his beauty...? Where's his beauty...?”

After about five or six fights, there it was. I could see it as clear as day.

“Stop,” I said. “Every time you fight, when the guy hits the ground, the fight's over.” He said, “Yeah.” I said, “Well, you can kick him or you can piss on him. You can do whatever.” He said, “That's disrespectful.” I said, “That's an awesome quality, man. How do you apply that quality before you apply your fists?”

After 20 minutes, he stood up and walked out, saying, “Man, you're cool. I'd like to see you again.” He stopped fighting that day. They were going to kick him out.

It's about that whole mind shift of how you teach and how you discipline with dignity. Where we're at now is that I'm developing Kuwegānh, which is our old laws. We're putting them into the school system there. Kuwegānh is not about right and wrong; it's about restoring balance, restoring friendship, restoring healing. It's not about consequences. It's about people working together to develop and take conflict as something to grow from, not to bring consequence.

Those are the mindsets. The whole shift that's necessary is because we are not doing service to traumatized kids in the way our school system is set up. Therefore, you have to challenge it. How do we change that whole approach so that we can find that beauty in these kids and hold them accountable in a gentle way, and so that their limbic system has calmed down and they feel safe in the school?

That's the kind of mindset you have to explore.

[The Chair, Liberal, Jenica Atwin]

Thank you very much, Mr. Rattray.

Thank you, Mr. Zimmer.

We'll now go to Mr. McLeod for six minutes.

[Michael McLeod, Liberal, Northwest Territories, NT]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you to the presenters today.

It's good to see somebody from my hometown. It's not very often we see anybody from the north, never mind my hometown, so I'd like to say welcome to Lois Philipp.

Madam Chair, I'd also ask that Lois present her written submission to us so that we can put it into the record. She was just getting warmed up when you cut her off. She has lots to say. I've known Lois her whole life, pretty much.

Lois, I know that in the community of Fort Providence you've become the go-to person for many people, whether it's students, parents, grandparents or educators. A lot of people seek advice or support from you. It's resulted in a lot of graduations in high school and post-secondary. I'm not sure what you're doing that is resulting in these numbers that we need to see. We're still a long way from where we need to be, but things seem to go well when you get involved.

Is it because we need a navigator program? Do we need people to help the students find their way? Maybe you could talk about some of the obstacles that you're observing when you're talking to people about education and about improving education.

[Lois Philipp]

I think the greatest obstacle to our moving forward in terms of education is the division that I see. I look at this room, and I assume that opposition is on this side and government is on that side. That's where it becomes a little bit challenging in terms of how we move forward in a good way, understanding that it needs to be about developing partnerships.

We need to understand that if we were to raise the indigenous graduation rates and narrow that gap, the economic effect on the Canadian GDP would in the hundreds of billions of dollars. We start with that as the primary understanding of why it is important. We get healthier communities. I look at Fort Providence. I was blessed because that is my home community. I was a sixties scoop kid and I was also a residential Indian day school student, so I carry that understanding.

I'm in the community, living with a non.... My family is not indigenous, so that has made me really aware of the challenges of walking in both worlds, understanding that I need to be a voice for my community.

In the midst of our programming, between 2008 and 2013, our attendance rates were well over 95%. That meant that some days I wanted some kids to go home, but they were there.

[Voices]

Oh, oh!

[Lois Philipp]

When you have students in the building, learning happens, and when learning happens, we see greater rates of success. The fact is that in a community of 800, we had 23 students at 11 different post-secondaries. We had them at Carleton, Algonquin, RMC in Ontario, and also at post-secondaries in Alberta, Saskatchewan and B.C. Those young people come back to the community with an understanding that they can be the change-makers.

I had the immense pleasure of working last summer with Michael's youngest. She's a go-getter, and the skills that she possesses are incredible. I'd like to think that a lot of it is because of our outdoor programming. By the time our kids graduated from grade 12, they had been out on the land for 50-plus weeks. They had spent over one academic year out on the land, whether it's fishing, moose hunting or doing Science 30—grade 12 science—out on the land. It's incredible.

I forget what the question was.

I think it's about working together for a common vision and setting aside our differences to understand that we want success as indigenous peoples, but it's not always something that is achievable within the present systems.

[Michael McLeod, Liberal, Northwest Territories, NT]

I want to quickly interrupt you because I want to get one more question in.

You have an opportunity now to make a recommendation to the government. What can the government do better or differently that will improve the graduation rates for indigenous people?

[Lois Philipp]

I think language immersion is important to the healing that David referred to. I think that when you privilege a language in a school, you privilege a systems way of thinking. I think that's probably the biggest one.

I think we also need to allow schools to develop alternative programming that is seen to be a mainstay.

When I left the school, we lost our year-round calendar. We lost a lot of things, and those need to be entrenched in the fabric of what is important—language and alternative programming.

Let's redefine the metrics of success. I like the NWT in that we fund students up to 21, so we're away from that period of time, K-12, and from saying you should be done, you should have graduated, at 18. Well, that's not necessarily achievable in all of our communities, but by 21, it is.

Marsi.

[Michael McLeod, Liberal, Northwest Territories, NT]

Thank you.