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.