Mr. Speaker, as the member for Nanaimo—Cowichan and being from British Columbia, I am pleased to speak in support of this bill. New Democrats fully support this bill and are pleased to see that all parties in the House have come together to fast-track this important initiative.
I think it is important to put it in context about why this is such an important bill. The department's own materials show that first nations' education in British Columbia has lagged behind provincial norms and standards, not in terms of the quality of the education but in terms of results. It talks about the fact that there are currently 125 schools operating on reserve in British Columbia and the fact that the graduation rate was only 43% for grade 12 students living on reserve and 48% for aboriginal students living off reserve. This compares to statistics overall in the province where 79% of non-aboriginal students graduate from high school. I think it is important to emphasize that there is not a significant difference between on reserve and off reserve schools for first nations, Métis and Inuit students. I think it is important to talk about what needs to be done to address that gap both on and off reserve.
In addition, the 2004 Auditor General's report on elementary and secondary education talked about the fact that this gap was so serious that at the current rate of initiatives that were underway that it would to take 28 years to close that gap, which is clearly not acceptable.
It has been a long-standing contention of first nations peoples that they need to take control of their education. In fact this goes back to a 1972 research paper called control of Indian education. We are talking about decades that the first nations peoples have been talking about the fact that they need to the right and the ability to assert jurisdiction over first nations education.
As a result of that document in 1972, the first nations education steering committee was established in 1992, 20 years later I might add but it did happen. From thereon in, first nations across British Columbia have been stepping in and asserting their right to control first nations education in B.C. To their credit, I must mention that the elders, the first nations' chiefs and their councillors, the community members, the students in school and their teachers, all came together to talk about how important this was and to put initiatives in place.
One of the things that people have been talking about is the importance of asserting control, not only over the schools but also around the curriculum and the delivery methodologies, and around a wide variety of tools and mechanisms that first nations know will work in increasing their success rates.