Way to drink the Kool-Aide buddy. If First Nations people want to improve their condition, they should start by looking in the mirror.

Billions go to First Nations every year. Its like throwing money into a black hole. If you want to get angry about something, get angry about that.

How about this little nugget....while you're paying $50 000 dollars to attend university for 5 years, Native status peoples don't have to pay a penny (native status covers to 1/16th native fyi)
There are native housing programs installed in many communities across the country.
BEFORE you get mad you should talk to natives ACROSS the country. Not JUST Ontario.
Did you know that the Mohawk (on the Tyendinaga reserve in Quinte region) were given land in Canada as a thank you foor helping out in the civil war? Mohawk Natives are essentially Americans.

Thanks for an interesting and thought-provoking post, Ian. This definitely raises some important issues. Sounds like it was an amazing opportunity for you, thanks for sharing your experience.

I think the Indian Residential Schools are a particularly disgraceful part of Canadian history. I didn't know the last one was closed as recently as 1996- that's really horrific.

I think you would be interested in reading this:

http://www.chapters.indigo.ca/books/Peace-Power-Righteousness-Taiaiake-Alfred/9780195412161-item.html?pticket=zuxgpj45p4ammurelmncvoa51Fwmuvi5or%2fkz4FUIcuVeuhp1OY%3d

It's called Peace, Power and Righteousness and it's by a Mohawk educator, activist and author. He looks at different ways we can rebuilt the Aboriginal community in Canada, what kind of strategies we can use and where we went wrong in the first place. It's quite an insightful read. The link I sent was for an older version, a revised version actually just came out this year. Quite interesting in the field of conflict studies/political science.

Great column, as always!

While it may be true that there are some opportunities that give First Nations Peoples in Canada a discriminating boost towards things like higher education, I think it can be very easily said that this is absolutely just given our history of hundreds of years of oppression and virtual annihilation of their culture. As Canadians we owe them a great deal more respect and interest in their well-being than we currently show. I think its fantastic that you took that opportunity Ian, the more Canadian youth have an understanding of these issues the brighter the future will look. I enjoy reading your blog and have found it fascinating to have another first year university students perspective at another university. Great Work!

Keep up the work man. There are many of us around the country advocating and questioning and working and growing compassion.

We gain as humans when "us" and "them" becomes "we."

Thanks Ian. I am a professor in South Africa, originally from Canada. The treatment of Indians in Canada parallels the treatment of Blacks here. The main difference is that there were fewer treaties and promises here. The things I have heard from my Indian friends in Canada make me ashamed. (One of them once said to me, John, I sometimes forget you are not an Indian -- from some of the earlier comments here, I think some people might still think that makes me a traitor to my own "real" Canadians -- I don't want friends who are such liars and cheats).

I don't know what your program is teaching, but in my first year health course, all of those indignities were outlined for us within the first 3 months. It is shameful, but the fact that Stephen Harper signed the Indian Residential Settlement Agreement and set up the Truth and Reconciliation Commission to help support the native people is a great step forward. The tragedy of residential schools is one that cannot be erased, but remember they were not run by the government, but by religious institutions.

I think most of the comments are on the button. Ian, you've been trapped in your own pattern of thoughts. You've been fooled into thinking the natives are oppresed by the mainstream. Not so. And if only you dig a little deeper you'll find they are doing it to themselves. On the praries, they are given unfair market advantages to compete by not have to charge, collect or pay sales taxs. Give your head a shake next time you dare think this country does not give a dam about its people!

What an honor, Ian, that you got to attend this new exchange program. What’s fabulous is that you obviously gained a lot from this experience. It’s too bad more students can’t be involved in this new initiative. I also would have found the whole thing fascinating.

I can’t believe the last residential school closed in OUR lifetime. It’s such a shameful part of Canadian history.

Thanks Ian, I'm hearing the message.

My aunt had a position quite high up in Indian Affairs. She said that there are BILLIONS of dollars that are handed out to Native bands across the country. The funds are to be allocated to housing, education etc. However, the government is afraid to hold the band councils accountable for the funds. Thus a lot of the funds aren't used for their inteded purposes. The bands get upset and go to the media every time they disagree with something. As a taxpayer that upsets me, that all this tax money is being handed over with no accountability AND that the bands don't use the funds to improve the lives of their own people.

The reason for the difference in funding between the public school and the school on the reserve is simple: the public school is funded by the province, and the reserve school is funded by the federal government, and neither want to front the money. Because "Indian affairs" is in the federal government's jurisdiction, all the funding must come from them, even if the object of the funding would usually be provincially funded, such as education and health care. This results in an ongoing fight between the province and the federal government over who is responsible for providing these services. Until one of them opts to pay for these services, or an agreement is reached on how to divide the funding between the two governments, services offered on reserves will continue to be underfunded compared to the same services offered in non-reserve locations. The Constitution Act, 1867, is the reason for this discrepancy.

Ian,

I read your column mostly because I attended Trinity and I am interested in how experience differed from mine.

I was born and raised in Southern Ontario and I know live in Northern British Columbia (well, it is called 'Northern' - culturally it is Northern but geographically central). I have lived and worked on Reserves and now work downtown where one sees First Nations participating in the worst stereotypical roles.

First, I applaud your thought to look 'outwards' towards others and to try and experience and learn. Like an earlier comment, I think the courses you are taking are inadequate for not addressing some of the more complex realities.

Yep, the system is (mostly) broken. The only way that we can all live together is if we reach out and try and understand some parts of eachother. Keep up your experiential learning!

Oooops - my apologies for the typos in my post. Poor proof-reading.

I guess my experience might not have been typical--but I did learn all that stuff in high school. My Gr. 10 Socials teacher is married to a Native woman and he made sure we knew about Residential Schools. His wife's grandmother was in one and, like all the rest, was forbidden to speak her own language, and was forced to speak English instead. To this day, she refused to speak her own language, because it made things so hard for her, and she didn't teach it to her daughter or her granddaughter. As for today's problems...I'm not really well-informed enough to make a judgement and cut past all the propaganda and different viewpoints beyond this: Things are extremely screwed up and something needs to be done. If only we could figure out what!

I imagine many violent protests in our future together. It is our responsibility to "endeavour to persevere." It will take force. I and my brothers will "challenge our beliefs and the institutions that shape them," to the very barbaric extent to which your churches and government acted in "killing the indian" in our ancestors. Justice will be achieved.

It's encouraging to read articles like yours Ian. The decimation and demoralizing of native peoples continues to this day. Knuckle trailers commenting on your work indicate that there is still a rabid group of ill-informed haters out there. Perhaps your article will help.

Ian;

While there are serious problems with the way aboriginal issues have been and still are handled in this country, your article reads as though you accepted what you were told with no critical analysis at all.

There is blame on both sides here. The government has acknowledged and to an extend made amends for the terrible issues that occurred with the residential schools.

At the same time however, part of the solution lies within the aboriginal communities. Frankly I don't see any movement on that part of the solution.

Much of the trouble we have comes from the patrician approach to aboriginal issues used in the past. It mystifies me that so many people think the solutions lie in a similar approach.

Ian, you'd better start learning to think for yourself. The big issues in life aren't as cut and dried as you seem to think. If you don't figure that out, higher education will be wasted on you. Time to give your head a shake, seriously.

I second the Kool-Aide comment.

So you went on a little trip, they told you a few stories, and now you feel enlightened?

You want to know what the real problems are? Go live in a reserve for a year. Really. Then come back and write an article and hopefully if won't be half as naive.

Bravo Ian!
Truely an excellent article! I found this to be an enlightening and thought provoking piece, one of your best yet.

On a side note please don't let people like Rob and Oz get you down. I imagine it is relatively easy to prowle around the internet, constantly leaving insulting posts on student blogs to boost one's self-esteem.

You on the other hand have done an excellent job writing for a national newspaper while making the transition to university and juggling what I am sure is a large work load and various other activities.

Keep up the good work.

Jack, you mistake criticism for insult. And I don't need my self esteem boosted.

My comments stand. The article shows no sign that the author critically evaluated what he was told. It presents a simplified, patrician view of a complex issue.

Both the government and our aboriginal communities need to step up on this, and both have fallen far short of the mark.

Yep, pretty awful, all right. Yep, lots of money poured in to (some) Aboriginal communities since then without producing a 'fix'. Yep, the kid's naive: so what freshman isn't?

All the money in the world will not repair a damaged soul or a shattered culture. We have been trying to buy off our consciences without addressing the basic issues.

The past is past. It's easy to get mad at the past. But the issue is the future. What are we -- all of us, not just the government -- going to do to repair the damage done? Or, if that is not possible, to provide a way for aboriginal peoples to rebuild themselves?

Any of you, left, right, pro- or anti-, write me an essay on that...

MB -

It's true that Aboriginal students have university covered by the government(as a small gesture towards acknowledging physical and cultural genocide). However, you don't seem to know that this is if, and only if, they live on a reserve. Around 80% of Aboriginal people live in cities. More than 3/4 of Aboriginal students never see this money. I also urge you to check out the the Indian Act, which functions to systemically deny Aboriginal people of rights due to denying their claims to status.

Great job, Ian! Thanks for sharing your Reading Week experience - Aboriginal people are treated as human refuse in this country, and we need people to start talking more about it. Keep up the good work!

Laura - While I am not about to go into the intricacies of this debate, as they are many and challenging, I would like to point something out. My roommate is part native, never lived on a reserve, and does not pay a dime for university. Rights restricted to those living on reserve are those such as land taxes, etc.

Luke - I think it's very important that your roommate's experience is the exception to the very structure of the Canadian government's policies about Aboriginal rights - your roommate is the excpetion to a system whose very structures are imbued with inequity and prejudice. Two of my close friends are aborginial students who have seen no money whatsoever. Your example is the same as a person who says sexism doesn't exist because all his bosses are women. Racism, sexism, and other forms of prejudice are systemic - because they're systemic, we have to look at the ways that government policies, academia, labour, etc. are organized so as to marginalize groups of people.

Laura - you're a self-important tool, aren't you? The rules vary, and are, indeed, rather intricate and complex.
http://www.cbc.ca/news/background/ aboriginals/faqs.html

Laura if your comments are real then I would suggest your friends go to the native and aboriginal outreach on campus. They will help them receive their money because yes, natives are entitled to free University education. They are also first consideration for extra grants and bursaries.
Prime Minister Harper has officially apologised for the residential schools and now it's time to focus on the future. That means working to raise self-esteem among native children so they can enjoy the benefits of education like many already have.

It is so easy (and really boring) to say both sides are wrong. Of course both sides have to take responsibilities, duh! I for myself like Ian's way of pointing out the side that we often forgot.

This is a student's *blog* about what he thinks and what he does and how he feels as a student in his daily life. If you want to see a detailed analysis of Canadian's native policy and debate on that, go somewhere else, for christ's sake.

I am a 19 year old who is beginning my 7th month as a recreation volunteer in a small northern town in the NWT. I agree that yes, one week is not enough time to be able to draw conclusions about life in an Aboriginal community. I've also realised though that a year won't be long enough either for me to understand the challenges that Native Canadians are facing. I don't think anyone can fully comprehend this unless they were born and grew up here.

Who is to blame for the problems and who is responsible for finding solutions, I am not qualified to judge (as I think few of us are) however one of the biggest problems that I have noticed so far is a lack of communication on this subject. On how money is allocated and spent; on the needs of the communities and individuals; on the interaction with new technology; on the pipeline...

So I think that a positive outcome of this article is that it has sparked a lot of interest and encouraged dialogue. If the Canadian Roots Exchange program make Ian and other students start to think about these issues, then that is a start. Doubtless, his opinions will change and develop as he learns more about these issues. For now, at the very least, he has got the rest of us talking.

To those who whine about Aboriginal peoples receiving money for post-secondary education: I teach at a major university in a province where 10% of the university-aged youth are Aboriginal. Of the 6000 students in the Faculty I am in, far less than 1% are Aboriginal.

You don't have to be a mathematician to understand that there is an enormous discrepancy there.

It is still popular to "Indian bash" in Canada. Yes, Ian, you have some more to learn about the way in which Aboriginal affairs play out in this country, but your piece is closer to the mark than people like MB or Dan would like to believe.

It was an active policy in Canada, and one still supported by Mr Harper, that Status Indians should be a shrinking portion of the Native population in the country. Indeed, if we are to believe Dan, senior people like his aunt in Indian and Northern Affairs view their roles as "keeping the Indians in their place."

I have spoken to enough Residential Schools survivors, both on and off reserves, to know that our nation needs to be deeply ashamed of this chapter of our history.

This juvenile little piece's author has his heart in the right place, but please, let's have some semblance of journalistic accuracy: Wausuaksing? If you'd misspelled the name of a town in Quebec this would be a big deal. Because this word comes from the Ojibway language, people glaze over the jumble of letters and forget about it. You owe an apology to the residents of Wausauksing and all members of the Ojibway Nation.

To Chief two-feathers:

If you did some research instead of just buying into what you're told by institutions (somehow, I doubt you've actually BEEN to a First Nations reserve, or actually had discussions with Aboriginal people), you would know that there ar etoo many cases of $ not making it to FN communities, programs, etc. Many institutions (schools included) use Aboriginal courses and programs to get extra funding and use it for unrelated purposes... same thing for FN communities.
It's quite staggering when you see the facts.

Same goes for Res. school survivors; the effects of such cultural genocide and abuse are still felt in present generations... it's easy to judge when you aren't faced with the reality of these effects yourself.

If you did, you'd be singing a different tune.
(just apenny for your thoughts)

"Do aboriginals get free post-secondary education?

Inuit and Métis are exempted from the free post-secondary education that some Status Indians are supposed to receive.

How it works: Ottawa provides a fixed amount of education money to Indian bands.

"Not everyone is entitled to the money … There's a cap. The money has been frozen for 20 years or so," says Victoria De La Ronde, director of treaty policy with the Department of Indian and Northern Affairs.

Because there is only so much money for post-secondary education, she says some bands may decide to fund only those pursuing their first degree, or perhaps only those living on the reserve."

In other words, ALTHOUGH THE TREATIES WHICH HAVE PROVIDED THE LANDS AND RIGHTS TO CANADA AND CANADIANS promised all aboriginals would receive free educations, the reality is a fixed sum is provided, and many students end up sharing a very small pie. Many to the point where they can't afford to attend, with only a few hundred to a few thousand dollars to support them for 8 months.

Free education? Not in the least.

"While it may be true that there are some opportunities that give First Nations Peoples in Canada a discriminating boost towards things like higher education, I think it can be very easily said that this is absolutely just given our history of hundreds of years of oppression and virtual annihilation of their culture"

in other words, discrimiantion by RACE is perfectly acceptable to you..?

for somethign suffered generations ago by forefathers, today's 1/16th native blood should be compensated based PURELY on RACE.? (not on qualifications or achievement..)