Agriculture committee  I do hear from my colleagues, both in the Ministry of Education and 4-H, that the indigenization and decolonization of the curriculum are of vital importance for there to be acceptance of that teaching. There are four or five other provinces where you can actually earn a high sc

Agriculture committee  Definitely. We see that in our clubs. There may be a 4-H club offered and it's off reserve, but there is a significant number of 4-H youth members who actually live on the reserve. They come to their 4-H club and learn from leaders in a community that's very close to their reserv

Agriculture committee  I think there's a fine line there, when it comes to agriculture education by non-indigenous individuals for indigenous individuals. I wouldn't say it can't be done, but I would just say that it would have to be developed through a trusting relationship over time, with a mutual ex

Agriculture committee  I think that the new announcement on mental health is huge. As was previously stated, it's at a crisis level. It is a shame. I think that supports around that are really critical. If you don't have your mental health, you can't even think about what career you want to pursue or h

Agriculture committee  I would support that notion. For 4-H, when we have sought out funding before, we have found that the majority of funding available for 4-H Ontario to apply for, to work with indigenous communities, can only be held by an indigenous community. That is a barrier for us because we

Agriculture committee  I can speak to that. We have a pretty even split, actually, between boys and girls involved in the program. If you look at volunteers, we would have more women than men.

Agriculture committee  My comment was on population growth in general. As a rural youth-serving organization, we look at what the rural population is doing. We know that in Ontario, it is getting older. The youth population is not growing in rural Canada. The only youth population in Canada that is gro

Agriculture committee  We have a technology piece, too, and I think the technology in agriculture and the amazing grasp of technology that youth have are where those things coincide.

Agriculture committee  I would say that, across Canada, the percentage of non-indigenous youth would be greater than the percentage of indigenous youth in our programming. I think that's because there are different needs in those communities than there are in most rural areas across Canada, so it does

Agriculture committee  We would have 4-H volunteers. Some of them may be seen as elders in their indigenous community. The volunteers I know personally were involved in 4-H when they were children. As leaders in their community, they wish the youth they see now to have that experience. In 4-H, in the n

Agriculture committee  We think that comes in a variety of forms. On the programming.... I think that the indigenous communities and 4-H communities are all grassroots. We do have some very strong shared values. We both value that experiential learning model. In there, we found some commonalities, whic

Agriculture committee  I would say that, mostly in the western provinces, there is more of a focus on indigenous youth. In B.C., 4-H has a three-year program to foster that connection in various communities across B.C. They have started by looking at the curriculum they use and moving from there. In Sa

Agriculture committee  Yes, I think there's definitely a role for the government to play in terms of encouraging youth to pursue higher education. I did have the pleasure of sitting on an Ontario advisory committee on that for under-serviced communities. Rural, of course, was in there as well. I think

Agriculture committee  We've had the focus on decolonization of our curriculum, but we've learned over the last few years that we're really looking for partnerships. As 4-H is a grassroots community development organization, we've worked with probably a dozen different communities over the last few yea

Agriculture committee  I would say that's consistent with youth, for sure. Regardless of whether they're indigenous or otherwise, they see that in farming. If they're involved in 4-H, they have an opportunity to do that. Just as an example, 4-H Ontario was just reclassified, from our health benefits,