CEPN - EDUCATION IS EVERYONE'S FUTURE

Response of the FNEC to the federal governments letter sent to the signers of the petition.

This is in follow-up to the response given by the federal government to the signers of the petition organized by the First Nations Education Council regarding the under-funding of education in the First Nations.

The Minister of Indian and Northern Affairs Canada indicated in his reply that his department was continuing to implement its action plan for education and that the method for funding band schools was among the plan's priority targets.

But after five years of analyses, his department has all the information necessary for renewing the band school funding formula. This has not yet been done, which can only point to the Minister's lack of desire to put his words into action.
How can he explain the fact that all the provincial governments have been able to develop up-to-date funding formulas which can take account of new developments in education, but that the federal government cannot do the same thing?
How can he explain the fact that the outdated funding formula for First Nations schools has not even been indexed to the cost of living since 1996?
And how can he explain the fact that the provinces, through their reforms, can add new funding, while at the same time he is asking the First Nations to take account of these provincial reforms but is not considering new investments to make that possible?

The Minister claims that his department is committed to fund curriculum development and purchase of equipment for a project to establish a First Nations post-secondary institution.

But this commitment was due solely to the pressure exerted at the First Nations Socio-Economic Forum in 2006. At this forum, INAC allocated $3.8 million to a university for the creation of a First Nations pavilion. The leftovers were all he had for the FNEC, i.e., just over $200,000 over a two-year period and, even worse, these leftovers were taken from an already-existing program and did not therefore represent new funding.
In a directly-related matter, the Standing Committee on Aboriginal Affairs and Northern Development, in its February 2007 report on Aboriginal post-secondary education in Canada, confirmed something the First Nations have been denouncing for several years, namely the precarious and inadequate funding conditions imposed on First Nations post-secondary institutions throughout the country. We note here that the federal government has wholly ignored the recommendations in that report.

INAC has tried to reassure us by referring to its creation of several committees and initiatives bringing his department and the First Nations together as a means of showing its commitments towards and support of the communities in their efforts to implement long-term solutions.

But how can the Minister explain the fact that since the ascent of his government to power, it has held back the funding for these very committees about which he has been talking for more than a year? And this has all taken place during the most crucial period for the renewal of authorities in education, which were due for April 2008 and which, as a departmental exercise, turned out to be a total failure.

In closing, we are convinced that the strategy of the federal government is focused entirely on maintaining the precarious funding conditions of the First Nations while claiming the contrary, in order to discredit the First Nations and promote the integration of our education systems into the provincial systems.

With these actions, the Canadian government is flagrantly violating the First Nations' right to control their own education systems, as recognized by their treaties and by the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, which stipulates that integration cannot be forced on the First Nations with regard to education.