The First Nations Education Act Is Dead

Grand Chief Derek Nepinak of the Assembly of Manitoba Chiefs, staunchly anti Bill C-33. Image via YouTube. 
The playbook on how to sow discord among native groups in Canada may well have been borrowed from Niccolo Machiavelli’s The Prince: divide and conquer. Throughout Harper’s tenure, the Conservatives have continually introduced confusing, complicated, and contentious bills that sparked revolts like the Idle No More movement. Most recently, the government must have known when it tabled legislation about aboriginal education with little to no First Nations consultation that it would cause outrage. But that didn’t stop them. No, what was made clear at a special chiefs assembly held in Ottawa to discuss the issue is that, if nothing else, Bill C-33 was designed to draw a line in the sand and cause division among First Nations. That realization may well have contributed to the chiefs' decision to reject the bill entirely this week.

The bill, which has been described as “horrific” by Grand Chief Gordon Peters, sought to remove further control from reserves to provide their own K-12 education while reducing the amount of funding for on-reserve education. This lack of financial support, in the midst of a crisis where less than 50% of students who study on-reserve are graduating high school, was clearly unacceptable for the First Nations chiefs.

Shawn Atleo, the former national chief who headed for the hills after vocally supporting the bill, played a pawn of sorts in Harper’s most recent gambit as he proved to be the first piece to fall in a heated debate over on-reserve education that never really involved the government. This point was made apparent as more than 250 chiefs from First Nations across the country tried to come to a consensus on whether to support, amend, or kill the bill that would have seen $1.9 billion in much-needed funding directed to that cause. An early sign that discourse would be a challenge was evidenced when the chiefs couldn’t even agree on an agenda for the day.

Chief of the Assembly of the First Nations of Quebec and Labrador Ghislain Picard, who has served as the AFN spokesman since Atleo’s resignation, found himself in the role of mediator rather than moderator. Picard urged the chiefs to draw a unified decision. Dene National Chief Bill Erasmus used an interesting example to illustrate the challenge of coming to a resolution with so many people. "First of all, if you asked all of the mayors in Canada to come to consensus, would you expect them to?” he questioned. ”That's what we need to ask: why wouldn't you expect them, but you expect us to?"

Perry Bellegarde, who is reported to be in the running to replace Atleo as national chief and is head of the Federation of Saskatchewan Indian Nations, had come out on behalf of the 74 First Nations in the province as an opponent of C-33 in early May. However, at the meeting many of the First Nations represented by Bellegarde’s organization, including the Meadow Lake Tribal Council, Battleford Tribal Chiefs, and the Sweetgrass First Nation, proved vocal proponents of the bill. In the view of those Saskatchewan chiefs, it was better to get funding flowing into reserves than bicker over matters of political difference.

Others still, like the chief of the Onion Lake Cree Nation in Saskatchewan, Wallace Fox, were appalled by the bill, but also by the willingness of others to want to negotiate with the government. Fox was reacting to a resolution drafted by the executive committee of the Assembly of First Nations aimed at the development of education reforms in tangent with the government. He accused the committee, which is made up of ten regional chiefs from across the country, of being too closely tied to Ottawa on education and trying to influence the decision of the gathered parties. “I cannot accept this because it was put before me five minutes ago,” he said of the resolution. “I’ve been instructed by the people at home to reject this bill entirely… You people out there—the executive—aren’t you supposed to speak for us? The top down system is alive and well today.”

Jody Wilson-Raybould, AFN regional chief for British Columbia, found herself on the defensive as she introduced the motion to amend or withdraw C-33. Several of the chiefs, including Fox, headed an offensive that started with her and snowballed into harsh criticism for the executive committee in general. For her part, Wilson-Raybould said that, while she didn’t feel the executive committee was in cahoots with Ottawa on the file, she stressed the importance of engaging with the federal government to ensure educational solutions to ongoing issues at on-reserve schools. For that reason, said she, a resolution was of utmost importance to the day’s discussion.

“Coming out of our executive meeting [held in advance of the special chiefs assembly], we had unanimous support for putting forward a recommendation in terms of a resolution. And we decided to bring that to our chiefs so that we could have a discussion about it,” she said. “When I introduced that resolution I spoke about the agreement among the executives, and it was my hope that there would have been some substantive dialogue around that resolution. That was the intent. It was a resolution that certainly did not support Bill C-33 in its current form; it supported the need to have substantial amendments.”

While members of the committee were not permitted to vote, the opinions were split even within those ranks. Most, as was previously reported in VICE, showed up with instructions from the First Nations they represent to reject the bill. Some were told by their people to investigate amendments and see to it that C-33 went ahead in some form. Others, like Morley Googoo, AFN regional chief for Nova Scotia and Newfoundland, travelled to the capital to support the bill. Reached by phone for comment after the meeting, Googoo expressed “cautious disappointment” over the way the say unfolded.

“I understand how people felt they needed more involvement in the bill. And there’s no denying that didn’t happened,” he said. “At the end of the day, we still have to figure out what strategies we have to take the next steps. There’s next steps regardless, but what they are is too fresh to tell you. It can’t be number one priority for the federal government and First Nations for two years and not still look and hope for a way forward. You’ve got to let the dust settle from the meeting and map out what’s going to happen next.”

Despite discord and heated debate, the end result saw Bill C-33 unanimously rejected by the chiefs. Aboriginal Affairs Minister Bernard Valcourt subsequently killed the bill, keeping his promise that if the AFN did not support the legislation, it would not be passed. What was left in the wake of that decision was uncertainty. When the axe fell on C-33, more problems were triggered than solutions rendered. While a motion was passed alongside the final verdict to negotiate a new education agreement with Ottawa, it was unclear how the chiefs would cross that broken bridge. One certainty is that the decision means a rough road ahead from both the government and First Nations on the education file.

Another is that the only people who will really suffer in the face of this stalemate are the children attending on-reserve schools, where the educational environment pales in comparison to provincial standards nationwide. From its onset, C-33 was a lose-lose bill for First Nation people: fall in line with oppressive legislation or let your children continue to suffer. On the other hand, the Conservatives had everything to gain: pass a bill that gave them more control over aboriginal education or save over a billion dollars. Whether the bill was in fact crafted to cause division is debatable. But it did. To the detriment of innocent aboriginal children who deserve better.