Mr. Speaker, I would like to speak to a question I raised in the House in September around first nations education. I raised a couple of different issues and I am going to focus mainly on post-secondary today.
There was a news release about an educational rally that was happening in Garden River. It was on the SooToday website. In that news release, Garden River First Nation talked about the fact that:
The current education system is failing our youth.
Quality culture-based education is the key to addressing the educational achievement gap.
Changes to First Nations education requires meaningful First Nation consultation.
Short-changing First Nations education affects us all.
We are the fastest growing population in the country.
Statistics Canada has predicted that Canada will face a labour shortage by 2017.
It went on to say:
Access to a university degree will triple one's earning potential, therefore creating an opportunity for prosperity among First Nation people that will eliminate the employment gap and inject billions of dollars into the Canadian economy.
I want to touch on an article by Paul Wells, on November 12, entitled “One school's native intelligence”. In his article he says:
A February 2010 study by the Centre for the Study of Living Standards suggests that if the gap in educational attainment and labour-force participation between Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal Canadians vanished by 2026, total tax revenue would increase by $3.5 billion and government spending could decrease by $14.2 billion.
Clearly, that is the kind of example of an investment in education that not only benefits the bottom line in government coffers but will substantially increase first nations' participation in the labour force. We often hear that if we want to lift people out of poverty what we need to do is provide them with education.
There are some very good examples out there where people are doing creative things. The University of Victoria has a program called LE,NONET. It is a Straits Salish word referring to “success after enduring many hardships”.
The bottom line about this program asks, does all this fuss keep aboriginal students in school? Participants in the program were less than one-third as likely to drop out as aboriginal students who were not selected for the pilot program.
There was also a national working summit of participants committed to improving aboriginal education across the country and they had some very specific requests. This is a working group involving a number of organizations, including the Association of Universities and Colleges and the National Aboriginal Achievement Foundation that provides substantial scholarships and bursaries to first nation students. With their working summit, the AUCC and the foundation and summit participants committed to the following objectives: to take a holistic approach to ensure successful transition for students; to continue to seek increased federal funding for aboriginal students; to continue advocating for increased federal funding for aboriginal-focused support programs at universities and colleges; to work collaboratively seeking opportunities to partner with other interested organizations to share knowledge about what approaches are most successful, and so on.
My question for the government is, when will it come forward with a post-secondary education program that has been developed in consultation with first nations across this country?