Indigenous and Northern Affairs Committee on March 29th, 2023

[Karen Restoule]

Thanks, Michael, for the introduction.

I'm pleased to be here before the committee.

Connected North was created through a collaboration between Cisco Canada and Her Excellency Mary Simon, focusing her work on the 2011 national strategy on Inuit education. The program was launched as an innovative way to harness technology to engage students and provide 21st century digital access to resources to help close the education gap.

After a successful pilot project in one school in Iqaluit in the 2013-2014 academic year, the program expanded across Canada, which is really exciting. TakingITGlobal took over operations of the program in late 2015 and has led its rapid growth since then. Cisco and an ecosystem of private sector technology partners remain engaged today to provide and support best-in-class technology solutions.

At the heart of the program is the commitment to an approach that holds indigenous perspectives at the centre of both content and process. This is what makes the program unique. This includes developing culturally relevant content that respects and values students' cultures, supporting the work of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. Sessions are sourced and developed in partnership with teachers in communities in direct response to their needs, and first nations, Inuit and Métis role models are involved wherever possible as critical sources of knowledge and inspiration.

There are currently over 2,250 sessions available to be booked, which is incredible. Each session has been developed by one of the more than 300 active lesson providers, 132 of whom are indigenous, and the program offers stipends to all providers, bringing new economic development opportunities to many indigenous artists, elders, scientists and a whole host of folks.

The interactive sessions, held in real time, average about 45 minutes in length and cover any topic or subject matter. The most popular subjects are science and environmental studies, arts and music. Examples include virtual field trips to museums, science centres, galleries, aquariums and more; teacher professional development workshops and training; and sessions that explore future pathways for education and careers, featuring indigenous leaders.

We also offer mental wellness programming and resources that are aligned with our well-being framework. The program is made possible thanks to a large ecosystem of donors and supporters, ranging from corporate partners to regional governments, family foundations and private individuals.

It's over to you, Mike.

[Michael Furdyk]

I know we're nearly out of time, so I'll just say that we'd be happy to talk a bit more in the questions about some of the program's outcomes and the impact that it's developed to date.

We're excited to have the Government of Nunavut as the first territory to fully fund the program across all of their schools.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Jenica Atwin]

Thank you so much.

We'll now proceed to our round of questions. We'll begin with Mr. Vidal for six minutes.

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

Thank you, Chair

Thank you to all three of our witnesses today. I appreciate your being here today and sharing your knowledge with us.

I'm going to start with Mr. Furdyk this afternoon.

Mr. Furdyk, you have a very impressive resumé. I did some research and I'm very impressed with the knowledge and history of the work you've done.

I would like you to talk a little bit more about the program delivery itself to give you an opportunity to explain it a bit more in the context of what kinds of requirements are necessary for some of the northern and remote communities to be connected and be able to do what they need to do with your program. I know you use digital technology. I know that it's very much a technology-based application. I want to give you the opportunity to talk about that a little more, please.

[Michael Furdyk]

Program delivery really begins with a student's interest or the curriculum that a teacher needs to meet. Both of those things are equally important in engaging students. A teacher will come to our team members—we have almost 20 educators on our team who help to deliver the program—and they'll say that they have a student interested in Shakespeare or a student who wants to learn about indigenous cooking or about science experiments. We will source an amazing guest speaker to deliver a session to inspire and engage them.

I think one of the things that also makes the program special is that we will send the supplies and materials to the school to make that happen, whether that's soapstone for them to do a carving, or squid—our office is full of squid. Students will dissect squid to do a science experiment. There are also books by indigenous authors. This year we sent over 800 shipments to our partner schools to make sessions and supplies possible.

Obviously the program requires a sufficient Internet connection to exist. We've seen in an Auditor General's report this week that there are still some challenges with having adequate access for many first nations communities—Inuit and Métis communities too—but we have seen improvements in recent years, in that more schools are able to participate that weren't able to do it before.

Essentially, at the heart of the program, it's delivering a learning experience to meet a student's interest, and it's also aligned to over 2,000 curriculum objectives, so we make it easy for teachers to see how what we have to offer in our catalogue meets the curriculum.

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

Thank you for that.

People who sit at this table regularly are probably tired of my talking about the concept of outcomes, but in the context of the program, in the context of the work you're doing, do you have some specific data you could share with the committee? I'd love to get the outcomes you're able to achieve through your program and what you use to measure success into the report.

There are different ways to measure success. This is about graduation rates, but it's also about outcomes in general. If you have some data you use to measure success and what that looks like, I think the committee would appreciate knowing that. We'd like to have that in the report.

[Michael Furdyk]

Thank you.

A study by York University in the early days of Connected North found that 89% of students who participated said that this kind of live virtual experience made learning more enjoyable. As part of the program, we also survey our teachers every single year. Last year over 200 teachers responded to that survey, and 96.5% of them said that Connected North helps to do two things—increase students' motivation and contribute to their attendance. We know those are factors critical to success and graduation.

Similar to something like Uber or eBay, at the end of each session a teacher has an opportunity to give us feedback on a five-star scale. This year we had a 94% teacher satisfaction rating, with over 2,000 pieces of feedback to date.

We're very data-driven. We're always analyzing how we can improve. More importantly, we're also working with those institutions—museums, science centres, aquariums—and, based on teacher and student feedback, helping them to improve their virtual learning delivery for every Canadian.

I think we have a big gap in terms of the preparedness. There's a lot of funding for physical spaces from this government, but there is very little funding for institutions, partners of ours, for virtual program delivery and virtual learning.

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

Thank you. I appreciate that.

I'll go in a bit of a different direction than I was planning when I started today.

In our first panel today, we heard one of our presenters talk about how we develop the skills to be a good person. I know, as an old hockey coach, that this was something very important to me. It wasn't just about wins and losses; it was about whether we made quality young people who were going to be contributing members of society when we were done.

I have about one minute left. I'm going to give you that minute to talk about how your program is providing the skills to young people so that they end up being good people in our society and in their society where they live, and we all come together.

[Michael Furdyk]

Karen, I'll share this moment with you as well, but the one thing I would emphasize is that a big part of our well-being framework is hope for the future. I think exposing students to role models in any and every field, giving them that opportunity to realize they can be anything they want to be and letting them see themselves represented in their learning is hugely important for them to be excited and have self-esteem and realize that anything is possible in their early age.

Karen, is there anything you want to add?

[Karen Restoule]

Yes. The one thing I would add is that this program leverages technology to provide an experience to students. When you think about indigenous ways of learning, it really is truly, at the core, experiential. I'm not talking about just kids; I'm talking just generally. Indigenous ways of transferring knowledge are through experiences: kids get to be interactive with their environment, with the folks they're engaging with.

When you think about this program, particularly in, dare I say, a postpandemic era, it's really pushed the world to a place where we can leverage changes and advancements in technology to provide more experiences to children. They can learn in a way that aligns with their culture and their ideology and gives them a stronger sense of pride in who they are and where they come from, but more importantly that they have opportunities that are accessible to them through these technologies and programs.

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

Thank you.

I know we're out of time. If you have something else to submit, we would appreciate any further data that you could offer to the committee in writing. Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Jenica Atwin]

Go ahead, Mrs. Gill.

[Marilène Gill, Bloc, Manicouagan, QC]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

I have a point of order. It has to do with the devices people are using. This really concerns the interpreters. I think people are using non-House-approved equipment. I also want to say that all of the sound checks weren't done for the first panel.

I simply wanted to bring that to your attention, so we can do things the right way with all the witnesses going forward. It's not nice for them to be interrupted either.

[The Chair, Liberal, Jenica Atwin]

Thank you, Madame Gill.

I'm just confirming with the clerk that we have the okay from interpreters and that was a tested device and has been approved. Hopefully, we're okay to proceed. Thank you.

We'll now turn to Mr. Aldag for six minutes—

[Marilène Gill, Bloc, Manicouagan, QC]

Pardon me, Madam Chair. I wasn't asking whether we had the interpreters' okay. I actually wanted to know whether the equipment was approved by the House of Commons. Those are two completely different things.

Is the equipment being used right now approved by the House?

[The Chair, Liberal, Jenica Atwin]

Yes, it is a House-approved device.

[Marilène Gill, Bloc, Manicouagan, QC]

All right.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Jenica Atwin]

Thank you.

I will now turn to Mr. Aldag for six minutes.

[John Aldag, Liberal, Cloverdale—Langley City, BC]

Thank you.

Welcome to our witnesses. Thank you for your opening comments.

I'm still somewhat new to this committee. This is my second week here and I'm still understanding the premise of this study. When I go back to the terms of reference in the motion that was introduced, we are talking about gaps in attainment levels between indigenous students and others. I'm assuming the premise is that indigenous persons or students have lower graduation rates.

I'm initially going to direct my questions to Ms. Smith.

I'm also wondering about how often we see female students further disadvantaged, for a number of reasons. Do you know if those attainment levels have a gender difference between indigenous women or girls and males? If that premise is the case, do you have any sense of what factors may be exacerbating or causing that? Once we start understanding if that's actually the premise, if that's true, then we can look at how we start addressing that gender inequality.

I'll start off by asking if there is actually a difference that you're aware of, and is there any information you would have on that?

[Lisa J. Smith]

Yes. That's a great question. Thank you.

I am aware of the gender disparity, but I don't have the stats before me. I can follow up, though, with more details. I think it probably will make other members happy too to have that sort of data.

I can talk briefly about the reasons for the gender disparity. When we talk about indigenous education, I can go on about this, but we need to have a shift in what the measure of success is, and we have to decolonize our way of thinking towards education when it comes to indigenous people.

When you have a young indigenous woman or a gender-diverse or transgendered indigenous person, there are colonial harms such as transphobia and homophobia at play. However, it's also about the safety of the indigenous person, so we need to really talk about that.

I know that NWAC has an online resource called “Safe Passage”. Even in that, you're talking about human rights. Oftentimes, unfortunately, women have to think about their safety, and sometimes that's given more priority than studying for a certain exam and that sort of thing.

Also, then, you hear me talk about wraparound services. Oftentimes in formal education, we need to shift the focus away from a traditional service-driven, problem-based approach to care, and instead think of a strength-based, needs-driven approach. We have to think about a lot of factors in there.

I know that I'm going around the question, but certainly, yes, there is a disparity. I spoke a bit on why that is, but I can certainly follow up.

[John Aldag, Liberal, Cloverdale—Langley City, BC]

Sure, and I have another question. You may be able to add additional information through a follow-up to this one too.

When you talk about safety, I'm thinking that we also have very different settings. We have urban settings, which could be indigenous women who are living off reserve or are residents of an urban community. That may be one set of challenges. Then there could be female students in remote communities and the disparities that may be there. I would think perhaps there's safety in living in their own communities with their own families and being schooled with their neighbours and family members and things like that.

Then, as we've heard, people have to leave their communities to go for higher levels of education, even for high school. I've lived in many communities where students have come in from other communities. When we have young female students come in, I look at my daughters in high school. If they had to leave the safety of our home and community and go somewhere else, would that have an effect on those learning outcomes as well?

Again, I'd like any kinds of thoughts on not only the gender differences but those geographical differences and the kinds of settings where indigenous women may have to take their schooling. How do we mitigate against these things for safety in each of those kinds of categories?

[Lisa J. Smith]

I think that's a great question again, and I....

The final inquiry into missing and murdered indigenous women talks a lot about public transportation. That's very much a part of this discussion as well. We know that for indigenous people in the north, for example, oftentimes there isn't reliable public transportation, and then that's a security issue.

As you said, when people are away from their communities, there's also a disconnect. I think all of us can agree that all we want is to feel part of a community, to feel that connection—I love being here in person with you guys right now—and I think you lose a little bit of that.

Now we have to shift to a decolonized way of education. As I said, part of that is creating emotional intelligence, emotional security and the well-being of the indigenous person in question. That's why we have to think about wraparound services as well, to make sure the person is supported. I think I mentioned “Their Voices Will Guide Us”, which is a resource available online that was put together for educators.

[John Aldag, Liberal, Cloverdale—Langley City, BC]

Sorry; I'm getting the flag from the chair. I think I've hit my time.

Any follow-up information you have that you could submit would be really appreciated.

[Lisa J. Smith]

I appreciate it.

[John Aldag, Liberal, Cloverdale—Langley City, BC]

Thanks very much.