Chelsea Edwards grew up attending classes in decaying, ill-heated portables on the remote Attawapiskat First Nation near James Bay. The students shared the space with mice, kept their mittens on in the wintertime, and never knew what it was like to have a proper school building.
“No child should have to walk in our moccasins,” Edwards told reporters quietly, quoting her late friend Shannen Koostachin.
As a spokesperson for Shannen’s Dream, a campaign aimed at providing “safe and comfy schools” for aboriginal children, 16-year-old Edwards joined five other indigenous young people to share her experiences with delegates from the United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child on Feb. 6. It was the first time aboriginal youth from Canada have met privately with UN officials.
Although the Canadian government ratified the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child in 1991, conditions for the country’s aboriginal children remain unacceptable, the representatives told reporters at a press conference in February the day before they left for Geneva, Switzerland.
Conditions on many reserves in Canada resemble those in the developing world, with limited access to clean water and basic infrastructure. The children of Attawapiskat First Nation—which made headlines when local leaders declared a state of emergency to deal with a housing crisis last October—have not had a school building since 1979, when the previous school was contaminated by a diesel spill on its grounds. The portable trailers intended to be temporary became the only classrooms the students have known.
Many reserve schools also lack things off-reserve students take for granted, such as libraries and computers. And since many First Nations are unable to pay teachers the same wages as provincially funded off-reserve schools, their teachers tend to be inexperienced and quick to leave for better paying positions.
In 2006, about 50 per cent of on-reserve youth aged 25 to 34 had no high school certificate (as compared to 10 per cent of comparable non-aboriginal Canadians). At current rates of progress, it would take 28 years for people living on reserves to reach parity with the Canadian population according to the Auditor General.
From the point of view of a young person, the situation is straightforward: as aboriginal children, they have not received educations equal to those of non-aboriginal children. And that, they say, must change.
When it comes to education and child welfare, First Nations are “assuming control of a broken system that has already failed children,” said Helen Knott, a 24-year-old Dane Tsaa and Cree woman from Prophet River First Nation in British Columbia and one of the representatives to the UN.
In the days of government and church-run residential schools, more than 150,000 aboriginal children were whisked away from their parents to be educated, converted and assimilated into non-aboriginal society. Although that system formally ended in 1969, it has cast a long shadow over generations of native people.
As the residential school system was dismantled, the federal government heeded a call for First Nations to control their children’s educations. In the 1970s and 1980, administration of on-reserve schools was transferred to First Nations—predominantly under existing legislation. Today, the vast majority of the 518 First Nations schools are run by their respective band councils or on-reserve education departments.
The federal government remains responsible for aboriginal schooling under various Acts and treaties, including the Indian Act. Policy commits it to provide educational services “comparable to those required in provincial schools.” Yet the roles of the government and of First Nations remain vague when it comes to how that goal is to be achieved. And aboriginal educators and leaders say funding provided by the federal government falls short of provincial levels.
Most aboriginal schools lack the checks and balances of other Canadian schools which are run by the province and have ministries of education, school boards, and relevant legislation. According to a December senate report, “the absence of these critical education supports is considered by many to directly contribute to the low education outcomes of First Nations students.”
The senate committee recommended an overhaul of the on-reserve education system, including the development of an Act to allow First Nations to establish multi-level education structures under their control.
For the six young people speaking to the UN, this was a time to hold the government accountable for its obligations to aboriginal children. And there seems to be hope.
In January, the government of B.C., the federal government and the non-profit First Nations Education Steering Committee signed an agreement that includes $15 million of extra annual funding for the province’s First Nations schools and secondary services. According to the FNESC, which can administer second-level services under the agreement, the extra funds should bring reserve schools closer to parity with provincial schools.
And in late January the federal government put out a call for tenders from six contractors to build a new school for the Attawapiskat First Nation.
“Our dreams matter,” said 15-year-old Collin Starblanket from the Cree Star Blanket First Nation in Saskatchewan. “And I speak for all of us here: as long as we keep focused on positivity in life instead of the negative side … the positive will only grow. That’s why we’re here today, and continue on our journey together. It’s our future leaders we’re speaking on behalf of. We need to create better opportunities and open more doors.”
The group traveled to Geneva under the auspices of the First Nations Child and Family Caring Society and the Presbyterian-supported social justice group Kairos. The two organizations authored a joint submission to the UNCRC last October entitled, Honouring the Children.
