Indigenous and Northern Affairs Committee on April 17th, 2023

[Shannon Cornelsen, Co-Chair, National Indigenous Advocacy Committee]

Madam Chair, Chief Elmer and distinguished members of Parliament, hello.

[Witness spoke in Cree]

[English]

How are you my friends? My name is Shannon. I was born in Edmonton. I studied at the University of Alberta, and I understand a little bit of Cree.

It's important for me to introduce myself in Cree, because it is the language of my ancestors and because my mother is a residential school survivor.

My mom was taken when she was five years old and endured physical abuse, mental abuse and emotional abuse. She lost the hearing in her right ear when she was very small from something that a nun did to her. My mother is now 85 years old, and she suffers from something called post-traumatic stress disorder. PTSD is usually something that first responders or soldiers might have when they get exposed to too much trauma. It should never be something that children have when they are returning from school.

My mother will never recover from the events at residential school, but that is part of my healing journey. I have to do the healing for her. That is how you break the cycle of intergenerational trauma so that cycle doesn't carry forward into the lives of my children.

Wahkohtowin is a word in Cree that means we are all related. I feel that is the only way we can move forward into the future, by treating each other with the respect and love that we have for family.

We have positive role models today, like Governor General Mary Simon, MP Idlout, Dr. James Makokis and scholars like Dr. Chris Andersen and Dr. Billy-Ray Belcourt. They are all contributing to this new world of indigeneity, where there are strong, educated, positive individuals.

What we need to do, though, is to have this open and positive dialogue with all of our non-indigenous communities and allies so that we can all start to heal from some of these intergenerational traumas.

Wahkohtowin—if we're all related, then I hope that all of you can empathize with the need for more financial supports to indigenous students, modified terms of reference for the indigenous skills and employment training program and less systemic racism within our post-secondary institutions.

That is what I am here to discuss today as the co-chair of the national indigenous advocacy committee of the Canadian Alliance of Student Associations. I'm passionate about how indigenous students can be better supported in post-secondary education. There are many gaps and barriers for indigenous students accessing higher education.

In my own experience as an indigenous student, my band funding was denied. They explained to me that they could only afford to fund 15 high school students. As a mature student, I didn't qualify for any of that. I was then redirected to the Freehorse Family Wellness Society, and I was receiving funding from their post-secondary fund. I also had to apply to the Canada student loans program. For me, there is no such thing as a free education. That is a myth that is perpetuated in Canadian society. It doesn't exist.

My story is only one of many indigenous students who struggle to secure funding for their post-secondary education. In order to reduce these barriers for students, I'm asking this committee to consider the following.

Increase funding to the post-secondary student support program, known as PSSSP. This program is a major source of funding for indigenous students. However, because indigenous youth are one of the fastest-growing demographics, the program doesn't have enough funding to meet the demand.

We're also asking that the government modify the terms of reference for the indigenous student employment training agreements, known as the ISET agreements, to remove ties to funding post-secondary education to labour market outcomes. Since these agreements and their funding are tied to labour market outcomes, this limits the funding for certain educational programs that are deemed less than beneficial for the labour market. It therefore compromises the availability of programs for indigenous learners and violates indigenous treaty rights established in the numbered treaties.

If we want indigenous students to thrive, we also need their communities and their culture to thrive. We need to ensure that they can access post-secondary education and freely choose their programs of study.

I ask this committee to remember that we are all related. Improvement for one is an improvement for all.

I will happily take your questions.

Hay-hay.

[The Chair, Liberal, Jenica Atwin]

Thank you very much.

We now go to National Chief Elmer St. Pierre.

You have five minutes.

[National Chief Elmer St. Pierre, Congress of Aboriginal Peoples]

Boozhoo. Aanii. Sekoh.

Before I begin, I would like to acknowledge that I am speaking on the ancestral territory of the first nations, Métis and Inuit people in Winnipeg, Treaty 1.

I would also like to thank Madam Chair and the INAN committee for inviting me here today.

As CAP's national chief, I know we have been advocating for this for over 50 years. One of our biggest priorities is education for our youth. Two and half years ago, when I was elected, that was one of my platform speeches. I wanted to make sure our youth had access to funding for education.

I believe our outcomes for education for our students are very high. Those kids who are going on to college or university, it's mom and dad who have put them there as well as themselves. They've worked summer after summer. Some of them have even taken after-school work in order to continue on. First of all, they don't want to fail themselves, nor do they want to fail their mom and dad, but the worse thing is that our students, through the CAP organization, have no access to get any funding whatsoever.

We've had dealings with Indspire and all they keep telling our students is “You don't qualify.” How can you not qualify as a Métis person? If they have the documentation that they're Métis, then they're Métis. I've never heard of any other documentation they need. As far as being in the east and the south and that goes, we have to remember our leader, Louis Riel, was born and raised in Quebec until he went westward.

In any case, that is one of our biggest concerns because our youth—like my colleague before spoke about—we have to really support. We're asking the committee here to take that back and say, listen, in order for us to have good youth outcomes for college and university, we need to help and support them.

We sit back and we think, look at all those young kids over there on drugs or doing whatever they're doing. Maybe those kids wanted to go to college or university, but they couldn't because there was no funding for them to go. Where are they going to go to? They're going to go with their buddy, just hanging out in the streets. That's our fault. That's your fault. If there was funding there for our kids....

We need more funding. There's no doubt in my mind that we need more funding. With the funding and the kids going to school, the outcome is going to be that they are going to be in good jobs. They are going to be working. They're not going to be hanging out on the streets looking for something to do or getting into trouble.

It's just sad to say this is the way we are treating our youth who are coming in. We've all at one point or another faced discrimination and racism, but what other forum for our youth, within CAP...? It might not just be CAP. There may be other aboriginal kids. What a great way to say this is discrimination against you. You're not going to go to school because you don't qualify.

I would really like to stress what our colleagues said. We need lots of funding. We need to put it so that our children, when they are coming up—and not just those coming up, but some of them who want to go back to school—get a chance to prove themselves.

Before I do say that, like the colleague just before me, I would like to ask the Creator to guide you as you make your journey for healing, and that he watches over you as you travel your way.

Thank you very much.

[The Chair, Liberal, Jenica Atwin]

Thank you, Chief St. Pierre.

We will now proceed to our first round of questions with Mr. Vidal for six minutes.

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

Thank you, Chair.

I want to thank all three of our witnesses today for their contribution to our study and the impacts it will have on the report that we provide when this study is complete.

I'm actually going to throw this question out to all three of you. I had a different strategy until I listened to all three of you, but I'm going to change my ways here. I'm going to give each of you an opportunity.

I want to reiterate that our study is about improving outcomes, including graduation rates. The bigger picture is education outcomes. It's not just focused on a little piece of it. In my mind, that starts all the way at pre-K through the post-secondary stuff. One thing we keep hearing about is that attendance is directly correlated to the outcomes, starting with kids.

You all have your own experience. I know the national chief is focused on urban indigenous folks. That's their focus. The ladies at the desk here are focused on other groups of people from where they represent and where they come from.

I want to ask you, in the context of attendance and that direct correlation, in your experience, in your situation and where you have an impact, how can we encourage improved attendance all the way from pre-K through post-secondary to improve overall outcomes in education?

I'll go in the order you presented. Ms. Davis, you get to go first, then Ms. Cornelsen and then National Chief St. Pierre.

[Sylvia Davis]

Lucky me. I was probably the most nervous coming in here today.

Prior to taking this position, I was a high school teacher, but the high school that I worked at was for northern students who left their remote communities and came to a site outside of Sioux Lookout. Attendance there was a lot different than it is inside a community where the students come from their parents. At the site that I was at—the high school I was teaching at—there was nowhere for the students to go. It was at the end of a dirt road in a beautiful setting. It was a peninsula surrounded by water and waterfalls, so they could go for a nature walk, but you could trust that they weren't very far.

For attendance, especially coming back postpandemic.... This is the first year in three years that we've had school every day. It's exhausting. Our staff are exhausted. Our students are exhausted. Now that it's April and June is sort of in sight and it keeps snowing, we're tired, as educators.

We try to have fun activities at the end of the day. In Lac Seul, our three schools have a different approach to ending their school day. They want to end it on a fun note, so every week the students have a handful or up to 10 activities, depending on which school they're at, because we vary in sizes, that they can sign up for. For the last hour of every school day, they could be crocheting, doing origami, doing drama or whatever the teachers and staff want to offer in terms of an extracurricular. Then the students are excited to go and participate in that activity that they chose to participate in.

That was helping, especially through the pandemic. That was one way we tried to focus on that in the elementary school.

With our high school students, we bus them in so they spend a lot of.... If they miss the bus, it's an hour to get to school. Since I've become the director, I've actually really pushed our staff to get the students to school. Their job isn't to get kids on the bus. It's to get students to school. We've purchased vehicles that hold numerous students. We're licensing our staff to be bus drivers, and they're getting kids to school.

Those are some of the ways that Lac Seul is doing this.

[Shannon Cornelsen]

Thank you, Sylvia.

Thank you for the question.

With regard to attendance, we also need to address the intergenerational trauma that is affecting entire family units in their home lives. That is a major aspect of why children do not complete their high school education. There needs to be a lot more support for mental health. Quite often, we have our own ceremonies and our own ways of doing things, which are beneficial. They ground us in our culture, and that promotes our healing as well. However, those things are not taught in our current curriculum.

As was mentioned earlier, Treaty 7 has some wonderful programs, which include immersive indigenous knowledge and teaching. That needs to be across Canada in my opinion. Land-based knowledge and land-based courses are also another way to keep people engaged. They promote their indigenous heritage, so they are grounded. They would know why they are going to university and what is going to motivate them to other ISET program training, or whatever they need to be doing.

[The Chair, Liberal, Jenica Atwin]

We are at time, but Mr. St. Pierre can certainly respond.

[National Chief Elmer St. Pierre]

One of our main things is that it comes right back to funding. Our students, if they have to work after school, may have to work until nine or 10 o'clock, and they would be trying to do their homework at the same time. They're going to be really stressed out come morning, and they're not going to show up for school.

There are many things. As I said, we have to think outside the box on what we can do to keep them in school. One is to make sure these kids do not have to work after school unless they want to work to just have some play money, so they can go out and party if they want to party.

It is a good question. We should be thinking really hard. How will we keep them in school? Like my colleague said before me, many of our young kids don't know what our heritage is all about. I've got kids who come up to me and ask, “Why do you go to powwows? What's that dancing and drumming all about?” It's just simple little things like that. I grew up knowing about that, but the other kids, they don't know. They go to a powwow, and I don't know if they just think it's a big party, all the families getting together.... Actually, that's what it is. It is a big party for all our families, and we're not blood families. We're just families, and we get together.

Our children also need to know our heritage. It would be great to put it into a curriculum for them, so they can attend that certain class.

[The Chair, Liberal, Jenica Atwin]

Thank you very much.

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. This is a very interesting discussion. I'm from the Northwest Territories, and I certainly agree with a number of things being said today, especially on the investment that is required for more resources.

I know that in the Northwest Territories, and I think it applies to Nunavut and Yukon, we have almost a two-tiered type of education system. Regional centres have a certain level of education, and most of the students who graduate can go off to university or college. However, if you live in a smaller community, it's a challenge going from grade 12 to university. It's pretty much impossible without some upgrading. A lot of frustrated students drop out when they get to grade 10 or grade 11. That's when they find out they need to do another two years of upgrading after 12 years. It's because there are not enough resources for the proper courses so that they can get into the big institutions.

We have a challenge with attendance because we have a challenge with housing. We have so many students who will go to school but who are falling asleep. They couldn't sleep all night, because there are so many people in the unit they're staying in.

Of course, we don't have the tutor support that is needed. If your parents don't have the higher-level education, they can't provide you with assistance with your homework. It becomes overwhelming for a lot of students. That's what I hear.

Of course, the sun is up until 10 o'clock right now in Northwest Territories. Kids don't want to go to bed. By next month it will be 24 hours a day of sunlight. The sunshine is part of our challenge to keep young people in school.

There are other things as well. There are no facilities in our communities for sports programs. A lot of children and young people just get so frustrated. When they do participate, they can't compete with the larger centres. By grade 9 there are hardly any girls playing sports. The girls are the ones who you really notice are dropping off by grade 9. If any girl wants to play sports, they have to do it on an individual basis.

There's also the culture shock of going into a larger city or a different part of the country where there are a lot of people. For many of them, discrimination is something they don't experience in a small community, because they're the majority. When they go to a larger centre, they become the minority.

There are lots of things. I'm hearing that we need investment, and I totally agree. I think we need a navigator program. We don't have staff housing, so a lot of teachers don't want to come to our communities. We should do a visit of some of the accommodations that some of the teachers are staying in. I don't have to tell the witnesses, but you'd be shocked for sure, colleagues.

I want to ask all of you to talk a little bit about what we need in the communities for investment in order to get to the level where we can start looking at post-secondary. In my communities, too many don't make it to that level.

Perhaps you could start.

[Sylvia Davis]

Okay.

That's a really good question. It's one that I've been thinking about, especially after I received this invitation.

Our first nation doesn't have an REA. I'm a little bit leery about it, honestly. I think there's some history with the government, maybe, that is in play. I ran into Minister Hajdu this morning at the airport, and I actually approached her. I asked her why post-secondary funds can't be included in an REA, because if we as a community had the power to say that we needed this much money for educating our students who are from the community and who live outside the community, that would give us greater power. Then we're not running into problems like my colleague here had when she was a mature student.

I was a mature student, and I was fortunate to have access to post-secondary funding through Northern Nishnawbe Education Council, which runs out of Sioux Lookout and Thunder Bay. Right now Lac Seul's post-secondary funds are channelled through NNEC. We're leaving it like that, because we may benefit more from it. We share the funding with the northern communities north of Sioux Lookout. If there's one community that has, say, five spots with NNEC and they only send three, it might be a Lac Seul member who has access to that funding.

If I pull away from there at this point.... Without having the promise of our needs being met in terms of post-secondary funding, then we're going to stay there to benefit the community. But then, at the same time, it feels like we're stealing from another community, from some of our cousins and our bothers and sisters.

[Shannon Cornelsen]

Thank you for the question.

What we have identified for CASA.... We represent over 400,000 students. Specifically for this indigenous committee, we asked all of our members what was needed, and the top three things we identified immediately were better housing, better mental health care supports and increased funding.

With the increased funding, we are asking the government and MP Miller to expand the investments in the post-secondary student support program to meet the program demand so that everybody can attend. We're also asking for the eligibility criteria for the program to include more than indigenous students, including Métis students, as well as students from the Northwest Territories, the James Bay and Northern Quebec Agreement and the Northeastern Québec Agreement who reside outside of their territories for more than 12 months. What we are asking for is an increase in funding so that there's more eligibility.

To be indigenous in Canada puts you in a box. You are first nation, Métis or Inuit, and that does not necessarily describe the entire indigenous community in Canada, so we need to be more inclusive in that respect as well.

It's very disheartening when you have somebody in grade 9 who sees a system that doesn't fit them and finds no way or no supports that will move them forward. Quite often, these children—literally, they are children—are suffering their own traumas with their own families and their own addictions. Those are things that are part of that intergenerational cycle of trauma that is perpetuated.

That is also how we need to support our indigenous students in the north. I think it's so much more than what is available. They're working with a curriculum that is based on Alberta, which is south, and that's completely different from how a northern learner should be accessing post-secondary education.

I believe that we need to be focusing on those things and moving forward with more funding.

[The Chair, Liberal, Jenica Atwin]

Unfortunately, we're far over time for that one.

Chief St. Pierre, you could add to that, perhaps, if you're asked a question from one of our other members today.

We'll move on to Madam Bérubé for six minutes.

[Sylvie Bérubé, Bloc, Abitibi—Baie-James—Nunavik—Eeyou, QC]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

I'd like to thank the witnesses for being here today.

Ms. Davis and Ms. Cornelsen, since the committee began this study, the witnesses have been talking about the shortfall and the needs in communities. I'd like to continue in that same vein by talking to you about urgency.

In your opinion, is the education situation in your community urgently in need of attention? Do we need to call it that so that the federal government will address it as quickly as possible?

[Sylvia Davis]

Right now, our urgent needs are space and capital funding for a new school in our smallest community. We have over 40 students in a school building that is basically the size of a house with an addition, so we have 10 kindergarten children in a very small room, which is very challenging.

We have contracted someone to conduct a feasibility study. Now we understand that the study is being presented to ISC and we're going to be waiting in the queue. I don't know how long that queue is. We hope to see this before.... I don't know what we will do if we can't get a school in the next two or three years.

[The Chair, Liberal, Jenica Atwin]

It's the same question.

[Shannon Cornelsen]

When you think of the demographic of how many indigenous learners are coming to the age at which they are eligible for post-secondary education, approximately 130,000 new indigenous students qualify to join post-secondary this year and approximately 70% of those will not be able to enrol because there is inadequate funding.

When we're talking about the Canadian labour market right now, we know that we have an aging-out population. Here we have this entire demographic that is growing at 9.4% and getting larger and larger, and we don't have adequate resources to put them into post-secondary education.

There are no resources available for them and that is unfortunately, I think, a matter that needs to be urgently addressed. Our funding, the PSSSP program, is also sunsetting. It was guaranteed in the 2020-21 budget to have two more years of funding. We haven't seen any government recommendations to promote that any further than 2023. When a program is sunsetting, we still need all of these indigenous learners to get to school, so how are we going to do that? That is an urgent call.

[The Chair, Liberal, Jenica Atwin]

Mr. St. Pierre, go ahead, please.

[National Chief Elmer St. Pierre]

With respect to our first colleague, I would really like to stand up for her. You say there is urgency, but in her case, it's a crisis. She's saying that within two years' time she doesn't know what they're going to do up there. They need a school and they need a school now. Why is it that in the major cities brand new schools are being built and old schools are torn down? I don't know why, but they're being torn down and there are brand new schools.

I think within the next two years, maybe even sooner, we will be in a crisis because we're running out of space. Again if the students are going to come out of the north, where are they going to live? It's in the cities, in the urban areas. I really stress to our colleague where the school is going to be needed within the next two years that I'll even go one step further when I go back home in Ottawa. I'll write a letter in support of her and I'll send it to her. All she has to do is get me her address and so on through the program here, through INAN, and I'll support her 100% on anything like that.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Jenica Atwin]

You have one minute left, Ms. Bérubé.

[Sylvie Bérubé, Bloc, Abitibi—Baie-James—Nunavik—Eeyou, QC]

You were just saying that the federal government doesn't provide the funding you require to meet your budget needs.

What are your motives for asking the federal government to provide more assistance?

[Shannon Cornelsen]

First of all, that is a treaty obligation. Education is something that was negotiated with the government and indigenous peoples of Canada. I believe that education is a treaty right and they need to honour that right.

Indigenous people across Turtle Island, across Canada, have been neglected and systemically discriminated against because we have been thought of as less than the rest of the Canadian settler population. Quite honestly, it's time for us to regain our education so we can finally join in this western society that has already almost assimilated us.

So, yes, for me, further funding is required.

[The Chair, Liberal, Jenica Atwin]

Thank you, Ms. Bérubé.

Ms. Idlout, you have six minutes.

[Lori Idlout, NDP, Nunavut, NU]

[Member spoke in Inuktitut, interpreted as follows:]

First of all, I want to thank you for your presentation. What you say to us is very important. Thank you for sharing certain aspects of your lives, because as indigenous peoples we have suffered under certain regimes. We were oppressed by others. We are similar. We are indigenous. We're like a family. I believe that we are almost alike. We've been through the same experiences, because education was used as a tool for assimilation.

If we are going to keep moving towards reconciliation, and if Canada is going to pursue reconciliation, yes, we need funding to encourage reconciliation through education. What my colleague said, or what one of our presenters said, is very true. There is a need for new schools. I was in Hall Beach just recently, and they're lacking space. There's not enough room for students there.

There are many things still lacking that need to be met. There was a time when I was in Arivat before the COVID-19 pandemic hit. They were expecting a new school to be built, because the school they had was overcrowded. Once the pandemic hit, the funding that was allocated for building that new school vanished. Nobody knows where it went. Yes, there is a desperate need for funding to build schools.

[English]

After that summary, I wanted to ask my question in English because I feel like I can't ask it in Inuktitut the way that I would want to.

I would love for all three witnesses to answer this question.

We've known now for a couple of decades that education is not a part of history, but is continuing to be used as a colonial tool to continue to oppress and suppress indigenous peoples. Too many Canadians don't understand that, and that's why we talk about systemic racism.

I wonder if each of you could give an explanation as to why that funding is so important. The reason I wanted this study to happen is that I've lived this experience of systemic racism with the colonial education system. I see the struggles that first nations, Métis and Inuit have had and that we continue to have, yet we still continue to want more education, because we want to be contributing Canadians. Other Canadians would say that they're going to save money and send their kids to school, but for first nations, Métis and Inuit, we still struggle to have that reality because of the oppressive and suppressive policies that continue to impact our realities.

I wonder if you would have some recommendations you can share with this committee to make sure that we're actually trying to make a difference so we are able to say, “Here's where the money can go to.”

I don't know how to ask in a simple way how you can help to educate more parliamentarians so that we do see actual change. What are your recommendations? What would you say to the committee? What do you say to us now so that we could see immediate change later?