FNEC and the AFNQL assess the 2008 Federal Budget

[marcel]

Attention News Editors:

QUÉBEC, Feb. 28 /CNW Telbec/ - The First Nations Education
Council has
used the occasion of the announcement of the 2008 budget to condemn
the
Canadian government for breaking its commitments in First Nations
education
right across the board.
Over the last five years, a number of Joint Working Groups
brought
together representatives of the Government and First Nations to carry
out
studies on First Nations education funding. Each and every study came
to the
same conclusion, namely that there are serious deficiencies at all
levels of
First Nations education funding. A Joint Working Group on the funding
formula
for schools showed clearly that they were severely underfunded.
Another group
on post-secondary education, as well as the Standing Committee on
Aboriginal
Affairs and Northern Development, informed the government that almost
3,000 students wished to carry on into post-secondary studies, but
could not
do so because of a lack of funding. The Federal Government says that
it wants
to increase First Nations success, but it completely ignored their
insistence
on the importance of increasing the funding of this program.

Chief Paul-Émile Ottawa from Manawan expressed his frustration at
the
situation:

I find it extremely disappointing that after all these Working
Groups and
studies and reports on education, that the Federal Government
completely
ignores all this in its budget. It keeps our schools in the same
precarious financial situation as they were before. There is
still no
funding for libraries, technology, for competitive salaries and
so on, as
the FNEC requested in its Awareness Campaign (www.avenir-
future.com). The
Government is fully aware that the conditions for success are not
in
place. We feel moved to ask whether this is not in fact a
deliberate
strategy to discredit our institutions.

Lise Bastien, Director of the FNEC, wonders just how
accountability is
going to improve results if the resources are not there in the first
place.
She sees this as an attempt by the Federal Government to discredit
First
Nations and justify a transfer of responsibilities to the provinces.
Ms. Bastien adds that she is in favour of partnerships with the
provinces and
that the FNEC has already signed a Memorandum of Understanding with
the MELS.
However, she sees in the Federal Government's announcement a measure
that is
intended to promote provincial institutions to the detriment of First
Nations
ones.
In a press release that it published today, the Canadian Labour
Congress
reaches the same conclusion. "The government intends to integrate
Aboriginal
education and health systems with provincial/territorial systems by
signing
agreements with Aboriginal and provincial/territorial partners, This
item
conforms to the Federal government's willingness to step away from one
of its
major responsibilities in the provision of public health care, and it
reinforces other assimilationist and market-based policies with
respect to
Aboriginal people throughout the budget."

Ghislain Picard, Chief of the AFNQL, concludes in these terms:

We will not be taken in so easily. Leaving First Nations schools
in such
a precarious state is an attempt to discredit us. It is clear
that the
Federal Government is following a strategy to assimilate First
Nations,
going against the Canadian Constitution, which recognizes our
inherent
right to autonomy in education as do all the documents and
official
speeches where the government claims to be committed as regards
our
rights.

For further information: Eve Bastien, Special Projects, (418)
842-7672,
ebas...@cepn-fnec.com


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