[Recorded by Electronic Apparatus]
Tuesday, June 20, 1995
.1530 
[Translation]
The Vice-Chairman: Order please! We are going to procede.
Welcome Mr. Thomas. As usual, you shall have some time for your statement and thenMr. Bonin and maybe myself will ask you a few questions.
You have the floor Mr. Thomas. Go ahead!
[English]
Mr. Bill Thomas (Superintendent of Education, Peguis School Board): Mr. Chairman, ladies and gentlemen, my name is Bill Thomas from the Peguis Indian Reserve 100 miles north of Winnipeg. I've been in education for 30 years. I appeared before one other committee several years ago. As I understand it, today I will have 15 minutes to discuss retention rates and the financing of Indian education in Canada.
I have devoted my whole life to Indian education in Canada at one level or another. For 17 years now I've been with the Peguis band as superintendent; that is, the chief executive officer of the board. I work with many bands, organizations, and learning institutions.
I will try to address those two areas. I brought some material with me that could prove some points when you ask questions. I hope we have an easy discussion about a very hard subject.
.1535
When we speak of retention rates, to me that means keeping kids in school. To me, that's only one question of many, and one issue of many, and it is as if we were taking that particular issue out of context, out of the total picture. Without the total picture, retention rates are not that significant, although it is an important matter and we do want to keep our children in school.
You cannot talk about retention rates without talking about a whole lot of other things. I would like to say, incidentally, that probably many of the things I say will be like carrying coal to Newcastle because you probably have had so many witnesses and they've talked about everything, so you'll forgive me for some of that. I do have some very strong convictions on many issues in Indian education, which I would like to talk about.
I know the retention rates for Indian children must have come to your attention by one means or another, through either the Indian people themselves or statistics that you get from the Department of Indian Affairs. It is one of those things I suppose that shows up as pretty obvious. It becomes a question and a point of discussion because it is easy to see.
I know that in many bands across Manitoba, of which there are 61, retention rates are a serious matter. I'll give you some examples. In post-secondary education, for instance, I was talking to one of the directors from up north and asked him how they keep their kids in school, how they keep their post-secondary people in college, etc. He said they send out 10 in September and by October have 9 of them back. So that's how serious it is. I know that in the regular school system attending school is a casual thing and therefore your retention rates are very poor.
For your information and with some modesty, I would like to point out to you that I brought along the figures for a couple of years for the Peguis Central School, of which I'm the superintendent, of the Peguis band. For the two years, 1989 and 1990, at the end of the year, including transfers out, we had an 89% retention rate; at the end of the year minus transfers out, which are not really drop-outs, we had a 91% rate. In 1993-94, at the end of the year, including transfers out, we had a 91% rate; our end of the year minus transferred rate was 97.3%. I don't look at these things on a daily basis, but I did ask for these figures from my administrators and they are the figures we got for those particular years.
I have some figures here on how many people we have at the post-secondary level. In 1994-95 we had about 370 students from Peguis in post-secondary programs; that is, in Winnipeg, Brandon, Vancouver, Ontario, the United States - all over. We had a retention rate for 1992-93 of 80.2% for our post-secondary people. In 1993-94 we had a retention rate of 75.2%. In 1994-95 we had a retention rate of 75%. In 1994-95 the count is 376 people whom we sponsored in post-secondary. So I think we're doing a reasonable job if anybody asks for accountability and about the dollars we spent.
For retention rates, I think there are several factors one has to consider. You'll understand that before I came to Peguis to set up the school system with the band I had been in education for some years. I've been in Peguis now for 17 years and I had the professional background as well. So in putting all of that together with the board and council, we had to make sure we had things in place that were going to ensure, to a high degree, efficacy in the operation of the school system.
.1540
You have to have a good organization, sound administration, and quality staff in all of that. If you're going to have teachers, you must have qualified professional people. If you're going to have accountants, you must have qualified people. If you're going to have other administrators, they must also be qualified in their particular roles.
You must have good planning, budgeting, and certainly good negotiation with the Department of Indian Affairs to the point of even stretching the truth a little bit sometimes in order to get what you need for the band. You certainly must have the community, parents, and students involved in the progress planning you're going to make for their future programs. Without that it becomes meaningless.
The Indian people do not have a tradition of educational administration or running school systems. To put it plainly, this whole business of education for Indian people has just been plopped in our laps and we have been told to run it.
Can you imagine what would happen if you'd all been in some other discipline and were plunked in this room and told to handle a system or program placed in front of you without any experience at all? What confusion there would be for a while. That is what has happened in Indian education.
The severity of it can be understood if you think about a community way up north where people don't speak English, there is poor transportation, and there has been poor community involvement in anything in the past. All of a sudden the department comes along and says: ``Here it is. You run it.'' But you have no trained administrators or any other professional people. So how do you put together an organization to all of a sudden make it successful?
That's one of the problems we have. It's getting less severe as people get trained, of course, but I think that whole scene was unfair and should not have happened. If there had been proper planning by those in charge, with any intelligence, we would have had a transition period in which we could have done some development work in professionalism, organization, putting together the school system and board, and all of that.
We should have had a transition period, and indeed we still need a transitional arm to help develop the efficacy that is required to run proper school systems for Indian children.
We need board training. We need organizational training. We need staff professional development at all levels. It goes without saying - I suppose you've heard before - that we need better facilities; we need modern facilities. That has been a sore point, and I'll talk about it when we get to finances.
You cannot talk about retention rates without considering the fact that we not only had a poor history in education, but also had somebody else always deciding things. The people were not in control. An alien and foreign system was placed at our door, and we were told it was a good thing for us so we should use it. People don't believe you.
We have poverty; I don't have to tell you that. We've had no control and we really don't have that much control today. We've had no models. The system has not had much of an attachment as far as it concerns what it meant to the community in terms of the lives people have had, their homes, and their culture. That was not a priority, and there certainly was alienation.
You have to consider the poor housing, the unemployment, lack of band development, sobriety, if you will, and an attitude from government employees about Indian people. It's a ``we-they'' thing for the most part. You have to consider that we need to have evaluations time and again to pick new directions from those evaluations for development. We need to have good policies for running the system. We have to have access to more programs than we have now.
.1545
We have to have our people in charge who have the professional qualifications to do the jobs. For instance, at Peguis, all of the organizations - of which we have eight, I believe, in the community - are run by our own people. Our teachers number 33 out of 66 right now in the school. The school is run by our own administrators as well.
I must say that to fix retention rates in a community to the level accepted as normal in society, the community must be able to feel the same sense of value and accomplishment as the rest of the world. Without that you're not going to have much of a school. People have to feel that it's valuable and it's theirs.
In order to have that, we must have economic development. We must have a wholesomeness about the total human component of the community. We have to have some equity because there are places where we don't yet have equity.
For instance, in a Statistics Canada census the Indian people are not counted in the unemployment figures. The other day I phoned and asked why and was told, ``Well, it's tradition. We haven't done it since 1946.'' I said ``Why don't you leave out some Ukrainians or East Indians? It's the same thing because all you're doing is skewing the Canadian figures for employment, and it's not fair.'' It would be better if we were all counted so Canada could have a look at what is really happening. Then we could do something about that problem together as well.
Of course there is racism. I don't have to tell you that. We have to have some acceptance on the part of non-Indian people of who the Indian people are as human beings, what they believe in, and what their traditions and values are.
I'll just give you an example. I know there is a phenomenon known as the shaking tent. The medicine man goes into a tent with other people and they have a ceremony whereby the tent shakes. You hear voices, birds, nature, and all of that. Coupled with that is a telepathy system, and they know what's going on in other places, particularly with people who they know are far away.
That is a real phenomenon that in today's normal world has a hard time being accepted as real. There are other things in the values and the culture of the Indian people that the real world, as you know it here in normal society, does not believe or accept. I think it's necessary, if we're going to have any kind of self-worth, esteem, dignity, and equity, to accept people as just people working together.
There are other instances. You've had people in Parliament disparaging Indians. Blenkarn, for instance, at one point talked about Indians having transportation with sticks in a very disparaging way. I don't think that's fair. My grandchildren, for instance, have had nothing to do with any of these issues, yet they're branded with the same kind of image people like that would portray to the public.
I had a four-year fight with the Government of Canada about the Canadian Pension Plan. We finally got it through that the Indian people could belong to the Canada Pension Plan. I don't think we should have to struggle like that before we're accepted.
It's not new for me to tell you that the treaties are not honoured; agreements are not honoured. In education, we made an agreement with Indian Affairs in 1977 on how we would run the system and the kinds of items in the budget that would be there for us to run our systems. That's when Peguis took over the school from Indian Affairs.
Not too many years after that, Indian Affairs said ``Well, that doesn't count any more. We're going to have a new formula for funding. We're going to give you this, give you that or take this out.'' The agreement was just broken with no consideration for the seriousness with which we thought the agreement meant something.
.1550
Indeed, after we started questioning some of that in 1994, Indian Affairs said they were giving us notice that the agreement was no good any more. So they gave us official notice and now it doesn't count any more.
They have in place a funding system that even they don't understand. In fact, we took them to court on the Indian education formula several years ago. They had all the experts from Indian Affairs from the regional to the national level to come down and explain to the judge what that meant. They couldn't explain it.
It is not an education formula anyhow. It is a formula merely to meet the needs of the budgetary requirements the department has. It's not based on educational requirements, it's based on federal bureaucrats' budgeting requirements. We have to have something drawn up at the band level to meet the needs of the programs we have to have, programs we know will work with our students.
We have a 1991 funding study. I'm sure you've seen it. You've been given a copy, I understand. In it reasons are explained for why we have to have programs that are more expensive right now, certainly, than what you'd consider normal funding for normal schools across society.
In Manitoba, for instance, we have 61 bands. Most of them run their own systems, but there are still bands that are given education by public school divisions. Frontier School Division, for instance, has per capita costs for students even higher than those for band schools.
When you consider all the impediments of the bands in education and other facets of their normal operating life, you can understand we have to do things that are different from what you can call normal in a public school division. Thereby comes the requirement for financing. As I indicated, that funding has to be done on the basis of community needs. When we did the funding study in 1991 and we considered the funding resources that we got on an annual basis from the Department of Indian Affairs, we counted up for Peguis alone 46 items in education that we could have used had the funding been available.
I talked earlier about the transition period and all those requirements we need in order to have a solid base to have a good system. Right now, just to point up some of the items we have to have to shore our programs, there is no distinct funding, for instance, for psychologists, speech therapists, proper guidance and information systems. Indeed, administration dollars for school boards have been cut out. Peguis, for instance, used to get $282,000 a year for administration. That was cut out. The money was given to the band council, termed ``band administration''. Even at that, that was at a much lower level than either the band or the board could use alone.
We need programs such as vocational education. This is a big one, because even in our studies in Manitoba in discussing this with the councils and the school boards across our 61 bands...vocational education has not been discussed very much. But from my own personal experience, and from looking at what is going on in the rest of the world in education for high school students, vocational education, or whatever you want to call it, technical education, education for work, pre-training for work, pre-employment training, and all manner of fields - and there are 36,000 jobs listed in the job dictionary - we do not have funding, either for operational matters or for facilities for vocational education in Indian communities.
.1555
When Sputnik went up - when was it, 1955 or 1957? - Canada got all excited and said, we must have more technical people in Canada, and built vocational schools across the land, paying for that with federal dollars, from 75% to 90% to 100% cost to the federal government. The only people in Canada who did not get vocational education and those kinds of new facilities were the Indian people. I don't think that's reasonable.
If in fact we have a parliamentary committee looking at Indian education and we're going to get serious about some new initiatives and look at what the reality is about all of this, I think vocational education has to be given a very high priority.
There are schools in Winnipeg that we looked at. We tried to pattern the planning for our new school, which is going on right now, after some of those schools, where we had not only the academic but the technical training as well.
The people we dealt with in government - that is, Indian Affairs in Winnipeg - are so stuck on their rules and regulations, and I guess their jobs and careers, that they will not look past the existing building accommodation standards the department uses. I think those are out of date. We need some new initiatives. We need to consider what vocational education will do for our students.
I know these technical training programs work in terms of keeping students in school, giving them some preliminary training, allowing them to go directly into the workforce, and giving them motivation to take further technical training and indeed revert to professionalism or academics and go back to university and into all manner of other careers...than those current programs in education allow them to do.
With those kinds of facilities and programs available, there seems to develop a motivation in the students that comes out of nowhere. It just comes on, and the kids get motivated.
I've seen it work, because I ran such a school for Northland School Division in northern Alberta for four years from 1963 to 1967. We had students there who had dropped out of other schools, students who couldn't speak English, students who came from isolated communities and all over the north, and we made successes of many of them.
Twenty-five years after I left there, we had a reunion. I went back and I was really surprised at the numbers of them who had gone on, students who were judged by other people not to have too much ability. They were therefore sent to a vocational school, where much of the thinking about those schools at that time was that if a student takes vocational education, perhaps he's not too bright. That kind of thinking went on.
But they do work, and I do hope that some time we can get vocational schools for Indian reserves, particularly for the bigger bands, and perhaps some central ones for smaller bands to use, because we have to have what is considered normal education for our students.
When the treaties were made in 1871 - or at least ours were - our good mother across the sea at that time said that we shall have a school whenever we want it. I don't suppose it was meant more than being a normal kind of a school. Well, we're asking for normal kinds of schools. Those schools now mean vocational education or technical training.
If you look at the requirements for computer operators, computer business and commerce, and all of that, it's a huge field that our people could have early training in. There are other things, such as carpentry, motor, electrical, and plumbing - all these other trades that people have to have. We have many of them now, except that they have to wait until they're finished high school before they can go and take the technical training. We could start them off at the reserve level.
.1600
We did a survey of the people on welfare at Peguis between the ages of 18 and 24; 85% of those people want to go back to school.
That's some stuff I put together. Talking about capital, we did a study - I forget the year. Anyhow, Manitoba alone now needs probably $300 million just in order to repair and build new Indian schools. Peguis has been waiting since 1980 for a new school. It was promised in our 1977 agreement, and we're only now getting around to building half of it. There are many bands in the same situation that are waiting for a school or waiting for repairs, and that is a real dilemma.
You may ask me where the money is going to come from. We don't have any certainty. We have not devised the situation we find ourselves in at the moment. We are trying to get out of it. I think Peguis is doing a job that is normal and doing as much as we can with what we have. I think we've done a fairly good job.
I've been involved in Indian education in Manitoba for a long time. I've worked with many bands. I've worked with the chiefs. I come with considerable experience in relationships with those people and with the educational community.
With that, I thank you very much for that time. I'll be willing to answer any questions you have.
[Translation]
The Vice-Chairman: Thank you very much, Mr. Thomas. Mr. Bonin, will you start the attack?
[English]
Mr. Bonin (Nickel Belt): It won't be an attack. The questions are meant to be constructive to help us try to focus on whatever recommendations we can offer.
I'm interested in your retention rate. You started with that. When you say 89% to 91%, at what level is that?
Mr. Thomas: That's from nursery school to grade 12. That's a total.
Mr. Bonin: Do you have figures on high school retention?
Mr. Thomas: I was looking at that. I can tell you that from the grade 9 level there was a drop there. I think that's explainable because with the grade 9 level, if you consider the difference between the school - what is offered and all of its academic stuff - and the rest of the world, etc., the students, to a large extent, maybe not so much in Peguis but in many other places, have to decide which is real. Is it the home or what you're being told at school? Often they'll choose the home and stay home.
I have stuff here at the high school level, grades 9, 10, 11 and 12, and I can leave that with you because I'm sure I have copies at home.
Mr. Bonin: I'd appreciate that.
How many students are graduating from grade 12 this month?
Mr. Thomas: This year we had only 15. But we've had figures for high school graduates like 15, 24, 29, 29, 29, 29, 33, 30, 22.
Mr. Bonin: I must say that is good. You made mention of a good number of students who move on to post-secondary, and that is a good signal. I'm not trying to bring out any bad in my questions here.
In the administration - and I find this across the systems we've visited - they tend to have a superintendent and a principal and a vice-principal for one school, or two schools that are in the same yard. In our systems, that's an over-abundance of administrators. Do you feel there's a reason that you would need more administration than the regular school systems?
Mr. Thomas: You have two scenes. In the past we had a superintendent who was far away, such as in Winnipeg, 100 miles from Peguis, etc., and the school was left to run by itself mostly. I think, in my particular situation at least, if I wasn't there - maybe not so much any more, but in the past - things would fall apart because of a lack of experience in how to do things.
Mr. Bonin: If you become vice-principal, could you be the superintendent and be a principal when you have one school?
.1605
Mr. Thomas: Yes, it could work. I never thought about it, but it could work. Our school is big. We're up to 700 students. We have a principal and two vice-principals. In fact, we have an administrator as well, who does all paperwork.
Mr. Bonin: And four office staff.
Mr. Thomas: Yes.
Mr. Bonin: What is your budget for education? How much does that amount to per student?
Mr. Thomas: I don't have the per-student stuff here with me. But I was looking at our budget last night again and it was pretty well equal: $4 million for the school system at Peguis and about $4 million, roughly, for post-secondary.
Mr. Bonin: But you don't have the breakdown per student.
Mr. Thomas: I have an old one.
Mr. Bonin: Approximate is fine.
Mr. Thomas: Forty-six, and it's probably at forty-seven, forty-eight now.
Mr. Bonin: Thank you.
Mr. Murphy (Annapolis Valley - Hants): Thank you, and welcome.
In your presentation you talked about the need in the past for a transition period when you were selected to take over the school system, and you believe that having a transition period mechanism in place would have been helpful. I think you said that there is still a need for a mechanism of transition to be established.
When you talk about that transition, are you thinking in terms of a co-management concept? What ingredients need to be in that transition period now to bring about a quality system?
Mr. Thomas: I say a transition because fundamentally we lack the numbers of professional people required to run those systems. We need training in all manner of areas. It could take a couple of forms. I tried to get one going quite a number of years ago. I tried to get what we currently call the Manitoba Indian education system society, which was supposed to have been a clearing-house. Any band that had any educational question could go and find information, answers or direct help. That didn't work out, for whatever reasons. I think mostly political reasons.
We need either from government or somewhere else personnel who can go to the band level and say this is how you do things, or this is how it normally runs, at least give the information, whether the band chooses to take it or not, but have those people available.
I dare say there are bands that don't even know where to turn for any of that. They phone me many times and I try to give them advice. But one of the other problems that exists is that Indians don't believe Indians. That's what I think anyhow. So they're either going to hire some white guy who's charging them several thousand dollars for the same information I could give them for nothing.... I don't know why that exists, but it does.
Mr. Murphy: We have the same thing. We call them ``people from away''. They seem to be experts.
Mr. Thomas: I know how difficult it is for government and Indian Affairs to come to the band and say, we're going to allow you to run your school system, we'll give it to you, but we want a hand in it. I know how difficult it is to say that, because Indian people are going to immediately say, get lost, we're independent and we're going to do our own thing. How they do their own thing, to me, is a difficult thing sometimes if they don't have the background. That's what I'm worried about. I worry more about the kids, because they're the ones who are going to get gypped.
Mr. Murphy: Maybe more needs to be done. Part of our job in this subcommittee is to make some suggestions, to make some recommendations that make some sense. What you're saying, in terms of the transition, is that it's needed. I think we've seen that in some places. In fact, we've seen some very good schools that could feed into a clearing-house, which you were talking about, that could help a school over here or a school over there. The information needs to be collated, but I think some of it is there.
You talked about the dollar per student. I'm wondering what, in your view, needs to be in that x number of dollars per student. There are some obvious things, but what are some of the things you would see that need to be built into the per diem for each student? You said $4,600 or....
.1610
Mr. Thomas: We have more staff members than you'd find in a school in Portage la Prairie, say, in junior high school or high school. We have them because we don't have access to a central agency, as it were, for specialists.
To have a psychologist, for instance, is really expensive, just for testing and for therapy, all of that. I didn't see any difference between hiring psychologists here and there and all over, so I hired one. At least we have them more of the time; we have them full time. I didn't get any help from other bands, or sharing or anything like that, because nobody was interested.
We need speech therapists, muscular therapists, and we have problems with fetal alcohol syndrome. I dare say that its incidence in Indian communities is probably higher than in other communities, for whatever reason.
We have to have a home school coordinator, full time, because we have to have work done with the parents so the parents can understand what the school is all about and help us with that school, because without the parents, oftentimes we can't work with the students. That's a normal phenomenon that's coming about. I've been reading in the newspaper today about what Chicago is doing.
Because of not Peguis so much but language, and because of the lifestyle that people have with poor housing, welfare, lack of jobs - the whole lot in our community is probably worse than those in other communities - the ratio of pupils to teachers has to be smaller, which is explained in our study.
I believe that if you think about education as a phenomenon in a community, where it was foreign before and where it is now new and is catching on, in order for people to understand and get involved in it I think you need more work, and therefore more personnel and more dollars, in order to bring an efficacy to that whole system.
Mr. Murphy: It's interesting, I think you said, we have too many teachers.
Mr. Thomas: That's what Indian Affairs would say.
Mr. Murphy: You wouldn't say that.
Mr. Thomas: No.
Mr. Murphy: I thought you said that. Sorry.
Mr. Thomas: I tell the board that if they're going to be successful, if there is something that's needed or if there's something that's missing and they understand that there is a facet of education available that would make our system work better for our kids, they should do that. I know it costs money, and that in the eyes of the auditor and the department perhaps I'm wrong, but for now, in order to make this system work, I have to do that.
Mr. Murphy: It's a matter of priorities, I guess; your priority is the kids, so maybe something else has to go.
Mr. Thomas: In time, I'm sure we'll be over a lot of that and we'll become a normal operating kind of a school system.
Mr. Murphy: But you're in a transition?
Mr. Thomas: Yes.
Mr. Murphy: Thank you very much.
Mr. Thomas: Thank you.
[Translation]
The Vice-Chairman: Mr. Thomas, I have a few questions for you. I understood from your presentation that you are in the middle of a court dispute with the federal government regarding the financing formula for the education system in your community. Has the court rendered its decision or has there been a settlement out of court? What was the outcome?
[English]
Mr. Thomas: What happened was that I used to be a bureaucrat too, but I didn't get along with the rest of the bureaucrats because I was an Indian and I couldn't win with the white people and I couldn't win with the Indians because I was stuck as an Indian with federal regulations to run the system. I had a very hard time, and I lasted only a couple of years within the Department of Indian Affairs.
I was regional director in Manitoba for a while. I was also in charge of education for the department in Alberta. There came an occasion when our own band at Peguis asked me if I would come home and work for them to run the system. I said I would like to, and asked the department if I could go home and do that on some special arrangement, which they agreed to. After seven years of doing that, they said, ``You know, Bill, you've been away for seven years. You'd better either come back to work or quit.'' So I said, ``I'll quit if you put my salary in the budget of the band.'' They said okay, and put it in writing.
.1615
In fact, they said as long as I worked for the band they would have my salary there. So when the formula of '85 came in, they said, ``We're not going to pay your salary to the band any more, because it's in the formula.'' I said a few words to them that indicated I didn't believe them and that it wasn't right. They said that nevertheless, that's how it was going to be. So I took them to court and asked the court to decide whether that was true or not because I felt that I was being a little bit gypped.
The court agreed on the basis of the fact that where we tried to identify items of operation for a school system in that formula, Indian Affairs people couldn't identify that, and couldn't do it, and couldn't identify my salary in there either. So the court decided that as long as I worked for the band - conceivably I could be 93 and still work for the band - the department has to pay my salary.
So that's the situation I find myself in. That's better than being pensioned off.
[Translation]
The Vice-Chairman: Another brief question. I read in your brief that there were non-native students in your school. How do you get the financing for the students? Do you simply bill the non-native school board?
[English]
Mr. Thomas: We have an agreement - not really a tuition agreement so much as a letter of understanding - with the Frontier School Division in Manitoba, whereby we educate their students and we bill them annually on a per capita basis. It's kind of a reverse tuition, but they come to school like anybody else and we don't even notice they're there, and they're part of us, inter-married, because they come from the farm community around us.
[Translation]
The Vice-Chairman: One last question. I noticed that your school was profiled in 1994 in the ``exemplary schools project''. Congratulations. However, you also say that the school board is under the jurisdiction of the band council, which means that education funds are administered by the band council. Now, in some communities, we noted that people preferred that the school board not be under the band administration. Could you tell us what kind of relationship there is between the school board and the band council? Do the band's chiefs decide on the funding allocated to your school board or is it an independent entity?
[English]
Mr. Thomas: We are mostly independent. I answer to the school board as their chief executive officer. The school board is appointed by council. There was a time that they were elected; they are now appointed. As for the budget, we're under what they call an alternative funding arrangement with the government. All the money is given or at least identified once a year, and education is identified separately.
All of the money comes to the band, but the band puts education in the education account. There are some things that are common, such as administration, that the band uses. We also have to dip into other budget items in education in order to fund our administration, school board, travel, etc.
[Translation]
The Vice-Chairman: Mr. Bonin.
[English]
Mr. Bonin: Therefore, is your appointment by the band council or is the five-member board autonomous enough to hire and fire? Were you appointed by the school board, who were appointed by the chief and council?
Mr. Thomas: I was appointed by the chief and council originally, but I like to think that I answer to the board. We work very closely with the council, of course, and if there are issues that we know are going to affect the total community, then we go to the council for advice and decision as well.
Mr. Bonin: So the last word is council's?
Mr. Thomas: Right.
Mr. Bonin: Would you see benefit in the board being completely autonomous, elected by the community, and not answerable to the council or chief?
.1620
Mr. Thomas: I don't know that there would be any advantage to that for our organization. I know that there are communities that would want to take advantage of that. I've also had the experience of knowing that where school boards were incorporated independent of council, either under the provincial or federal laws, there were problems in their operations and with cooperation, etc.
I think it's good that we, at Peguis at least, realize that the most important thing is that there's a job to be done. How we get along has to point towards that objective, and we've done that. We've not had any problem going to council and saying, ``Look, here's an issue that has to be settled, what do you think?'' We settle it; we work quite well together.
Mr. Bonin: I wouldn't want to give the impression that I'm asking questions that pertain to your situation alone.
Mr. Thomas: No.
Mr. Bonin: My questions are broader -
Mr. Thomas: That's why I answered the other way -
Mr. Bonin: No, your answer is good, I just don't....
Well, here is my next question. Do you have an assurance under your present system - which was not created by you, I don't think; it was created by Indian Affairs - that the funding would go through the council? What assurance do you have that the next chief and council will be committed to education at the same level that this one is? This is my concern. How do we assure that education will continue to be a priority regardless of who the council is? Because there are good governments and bad governments.
I can't speak for you; I'm not a member of your community. But I have personal experience in school administration. I feel that the solution is to have an autonomous school administration elected by the community and with complete control, with finances going directly to them.
Mr. Thomas: I think because of the social set-up of communities, particularly of small communities, that politics are a big thing. Little issues are big issues. I think if there were a distinct legal separation you'd have more politics and problems.
I'm rather philosophical about all that, because I've thought about it, too. If council, for instance, decided that instead of giving us half a million dollars for an educational program they'd give us $400,000, I'd say well, who am I to object to that? I'd live with the $400,000 and do the best I could. If the community sees the problem and wants to make an issue of it, then the community has to do that. I know that our community, and I dare say most communities, will raise heck if education is shortchanged and the job is not being done, if the funds are there.
Mr. Bonin: The fear that I have is that when you have a board appointed by chief and council, there is no longevity in serving members of the board, because when you change the chief and council a new clique comes in. I don't imagine your communities are much different from mine. We tend to form teams. If you defeat a council it's because it's a different clique.
Therefore, this new administration might replace the school administration and you wouldn't have the continuity. Some of the people I sat with on the school board had 30 years experience on the same board, and total commitment. They'd put so much of themselves in and had developed a lot of expertise. I imagine that might suffer. Am I misreading it?
Mr. Thomas: No, I think that's bad too because it does happen. I know of a couple of communities where chief and council changed and so did the board. These guys had to start all over again trying to run the system.
I don't want to be cynical, but in the absence of educational backgrounds, for all of those people the question is, does it make a difference?
Mr. Bonin: Yes, it does. I'm convinced.
Mr. Thomas: It has not happened in Peguis, so I don't know what would happen there. Our board has been in for at least 10 years. The chief has been in for 15 or 16 years.
Mr. Bonin: I believe that, and I see it through your presentation and the documentation. My concern is for communities where it doesn't work like that, and to ensure continuity even in your community.
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I have one short, final question. How much do you charge neighbouring boards or communities, per student, to sell educational services? Your costs are around $4,600; how much do you charge them?
Mr. Thomas: It's whatever that per capita cost is, excluding capital and transportation.
Mr. Bonin: They have to provide that.
Mr. Thomas: Yes. But there is also a long-term phenomenon at hand, too, in all of these things, particularly with reference to the question you asked. Unless people, to a significant degree, are allowed to do their thing, if you will, and gain and determine from that experience what kind of system works best works for them, in the long term we're not going to be getting too far.
Mr. Bonin: I agree with you. That's why the major contribution we can make is to reflect what all of your communities have said and take the good from the ones that are more successful. There is certainly no intention on our part to go in to your communities and tell you how it's going to be from now on. It's far from it.
Mr. Thomas: The other thing is money. People are always hollering about their taxes going to Indians, etc. I'm not scared of a stricter accountability system, if that's what you want, or for us to tell you what we're going to do, or to be a better partner with you to show you what we're doing and planning with you, etc. I would like to be able to do that.
I don't understand this standoffish business of the Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development. They're doing their thing and we're doing ours. We're going to see that, right away, it's almost anti-Indian, as it were. In fact, with a master's degree, I have to go talk to people who don't have a degree. It's kind of getting a little bit mixed up. I wish we could have a better working relationship.
Mr. Bonin: It's like being an MP and talking to the minister's staff. I know what you're saying.
Mr. Murphy: Certainly as we went around to different schools, the objective was to get more native teachers in the schools.
Help me with this. I came away feeling that expediency was happening in the sense that native teachers were getting trained very quickly and being accepted sometimes into educational programs with a grade 10 education.
We heard some of this. Some were coming out not with a broad education, but with more of a very narrow perspective and not having what I think in terms of maybe the education you received. They were teaching assistants, they were filling the gap, and they were native, but their qualifications were maybe less than what will inspire, intrigue, and move kids on to greater heights. I would like you to respond to that.
Mr. Thomas: I had an occasion one time to teach a couple of university courses in reading and research to a group of would-be teachers in northern Manitoba. I found that the standards of the people who had entered it, in terms of the giving of the lectures, the material, the behaviour, and the expectations, were really low. I wouldn't do it any more for that program. I told the president of Brandon College that I was not going to do that, because I didn't want my name dragged through any kind of hassle that was going to become of that.
I was convinced that those people were being put through there for, as you say, expediency, to please the community, to have numbers of students from Brandon College, and for other reasons. It wasn't right.
Those people did, in fact, become teachers. They were certified. The result was going to be not so much about them, but that this poor student was going to get gypped in his education when they went to be in charge of a classroom. I know that some of that happened. It's still happening.
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I know that across the land the Indian people are being let into some programs only because they're Indians. In fact, Indians are being made superintendents and teachers because they're Indian. I might be hard-nosed, but I think if you're going to be a teacher, you have to be qualified as one. You have to bring with it much experience in the rest of the world to give to the kids, to allow them to expand their minds.
Mr. Murphy: I'm with you.
Mr. Thomas: I think we have to be quite strict about that. In fact, they have that same program at Peguis. When I got there, I said, ``Student teachers will be student teachers at Peguis for only two years, rather than the four, and then become teachers. For the last two years, you're going to go to university, like anybody else, and become teachers.'' That's what we did, and we now have 33 Indian people on our staff -
Mr. Murphy: Qualified as you -
Mr. Thomas: - who are qualified, some of them to a master's level. We've got a couple of people just finishing master's degrees. In fact, in our post-secondary education - I like to brag a little bit - we have a little girl, 23 years old, who very recently graduated in law, with honours, at the University of Alberta.
We have several lawyers. We don't have any engineers. We have lots of teachers, nurses, etc. We have about 500 haircutters -
Mr. Murphy: Yes, right.
I was going to ask you to write me a recommendation on that, because we might get caught in saying exactly what you said and I'd like to see it written there in just that way. But we'll get caught because there are schools in different universities that are running native studies programs with an educational bent incorporated in them and they will tell you that their programs are good.
I'm not necessarily questioning whether their programs are good; I'm questioning whether the people who are coming in have enough formal education to give them that wide perspective that you talked about.
It's happening quickly that these students are getting their degrees and going back. Yes, we have x number of native students, but, as you rightly said, in the long run the kids get gypped with that. It's no one's fault, but we're allowing it to happen. The federal government is putting a fair amount of money into those endeavours.
If you were sitting where I am - because you obviously agree with what I have said - how would you write that? How would you put that into some kind of a formal recommendation? You're bound to offend somebody with it.
Mr. Thomas: You are, but there are ways of doing that. There are people with ambitions for a professional education. They might have only grade 10, or even less. We at Peguis have taken some of those people and put them through a program that brought them to university entrance level. They were then successful. That's putting it very shortly.
Mr. Murphy: They had to get that first?
Mr. Thomas: They had to get that first: pre-university, previous to professional training - upgrading, if you will. We've done that successfully.
When you take somebody with no formal background off the street, how they learn is amazing. I took 14 people, for instance, right off the street, and put them into a surveying technician program in northern Alberta. They all got through. Some of them are making phenomenal amounts of money. Otherwise, they wouldn't have had anything. You can do that with people. To some degree, people don't believe that they could really get there. You have to convince them and put them through it.
Mr. Murphy: But that's a sign of a good teacher.
Mr. Thomas: It's really satisfying when people can do that.
Mr. Murphy: But that's a sign of a good teacher, and that's what I'm talking about.
[Translation]
The Vice-Chairman: Mr. Thomas, I just have to thank you. I hope you are going to remain the superintendent of the Peguis schoolboard for a while. I think your community is in good hands when it comes to education and, please, share our good wishes with the people in your community in Manitoba. We were really happy to have you here with us this afternoon. Thanks again.
[English]
Mr. Thomas: Thank you very much. I hope that I have been of some small help to you.
The Vice-Chairman: This meeting stands adjourned.