Canadians were mortified at the rediscovery of the graves of 215 Indigenous students at the residential school at Kamloops, B.C. The death of so many young people is tragic. Almost everyone agrees there should be respect for cemeteries, but Canadians must engage in more than self-loathing. We must look soberly at the state of First Nations in Canada and resolve to give the next generation the participation in the modern economy that eludes so many. .For their first century, many residential schools seem to have replicated the horrors of boarding schools of Dickens’sOliver Twist. We don’t yet know the cause of death for these 215 souls, but Canadians – Indigenous and non-Indigenous alike – deserve answers. .One could readily believe from the summary TRC report that all residential schools were horrendous, even in recent times. However, within the full report there’s a substantial section telling the other side of the story. .In 2010, before the TRC Report’s publication, Commissioner Murray Sinclair wrote in the Calgary Herald: “While the TRC heard many experiences of unspeakable abuse, we have been heartened by testimonies which affirm the dedication and compassion of committed educators who sought to nurture the children in their care. These experiences must also be heard.”.More to the point, I believe, is the foundational Indigenous challenge today is quite different from what the three major Indigenous commission reports say it is. Instead, it’s whether Canada should enable the next generations as equal participants in the high-tech economy, or whether they should try to recreate the once-real traditional lifestyle of days long since passed. With the fur trade effectively extinct, the Indigenous peoples in remote settlements and urban slums have no real economic base. I submit that promotion of a Disneyfied iconography is fundamentally impractical and dishonest. .Neither politicians nor ostensible leaders have been asking young people what they want out of life. Oligarchs live high on the hog while there’s a burgeoning underclass of marginalized Indigenous that’s doubling every 20 years. Former Indigenous commissioners Sinclair and Marion Buller never even hinted next generations should get the education and skills training and opportunity for a rewarding career, that they themselves had in their own childhood and youth. It eluded them those who are employed in a rewarding career seldom commit suicide or disappear; they seldom become serious addicts or street people; and they seldom go to prison..When I was the advisor on education for Ontario’s Royal Commission on the Northern Environment, we consulted parents and youth in remote settlements. Universally, they said they wanted education for participation in mainstream society and economy. And they believed it was compatible with learning traditional skills and lifestyle. University-educated game management officers and wildlife biologists all achieve both these objectives. .Notably in Asia, there are templates from around the world for bringing marginalized people up to speed for the high-tech economy within a single generation. Saudi Arabia’s recently retired oil minister, from a nomadic Bedouin family, joined Aramco at the age of 12. The company taught him English and he rose through the ranks of the company after getting an intensive education, including advanced degrees at American universities..Today, remote Indigenous settlements have the world’s highest male youth suicide rate. And there are significantly more Indigenous prison inmates than there were students in residential schools at peak enrolment. The $3.5 billion in compensation cheques Commissioner Sinclair secured for former residential school students too often feed addictions and worsen societal and family problems. I know a former residential school student and multigenerational welfare recipient who received a cheque last month for $10,000. It went within a week for previous and current drug purchases. This man – or at least his children – need opportunity to pull out of the cycle of addiction and dependency that plague First Nations. Independent people are happier, more prosperous, and prouder of themselves. .Ironically, there was more forward-looking discussion in the 1950s and 1960s than there is today. In the March 1953 edition of The Beaver, then Minister of Northern Affairs Jean Lesage envisioned a policy that, if implemented, would have worked for all Indigenous peoples..“The objective of government policy is to give [Inuit] the same rights, privileges, opportunities, and responsibilities as all other Canadians. In short to enable them to share fully the national life of Canada.”.With the fur market having already collapsed, there was also articulate Indigenous advocacy for enabling next generations as equal Canadians in the mainstream society..Why can’t our next Indigenous generations prosper alongside once-marginalized and now-successful Asian Canadians? I think of residential school graduate Douglas Cardinal, architect for the Museum of History in Ottawa, and the renowned Inuit thoracic surgeon Noah Carpenter. He was born on the trapline and graduated from a residential school in 1963. However terrible the conditions in his school, he undertook to make a better life for himself, his family, and his people. .The tragedy of the state of First Nations peoples in Canada is a national shame, but one that will continue for generations to come unless we are willing to free them from paternalism. .Guest Column from Colin Alexander. He was formerly publisher of the Yellowknife News of the North. He was the adviser on education for Ontario’s Royal Commission on the Northern Environment.Views expressed in this article are the opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Western Standard
