 So welcome again, once again, to the inaugural Catherine Graham lecture on Aboriginal policy. Obviously, this is named for Catherine Graham. We're sitting, yes, she's sitting here in front, accompanied by her husband, Andy. Catherine was dean of the Faculty of Public Affairs. And I've just broken up. From 2003, 2009, is that about right? Yeah. Before that, she was associate dean research in the faculty. Well, research and faculty development. Her research focuses on local governance, community development, Aboriginal policy, policy processes. And she's worked across Canada and internationally on local governance issues. Catherine is currently coordinator of the Carlton-Battler Initiative. It's a collaboration between Carlton and the Battler Development Corporation, led by Mrs. Sonja Batten. This is to make the community of Batten a model for rural, sustainable community development. She's also chair of a community-based research Canada, a network, a national network of universities and community-based organizations. And more recently, she was appointed as senior advisor to the provost on student learning and engagements. Junior tenure as dean and as associate dean, Catherine was very successful in encouraging the action-oriented research and policy innovation in the Faculty of Public Affairs, as we like to say, FPA. Don't say that quickly, because you might come up with another description. This encouraged students, researchers in all fields. The Faculty of Public Affairs covers a wide variety of disciplines. And Catherine was key in setting up research directions and supporting them and everything from weapons in space to refugees in downtown Ottawa with partners from across the whole spectrum, public sector, governments, nonprofits. She led a very number. She was very successful in getting fundraising going for the faculty and actually set it on a wonderful factor it is today. I think one of the key items of the opportunities that leadership that Catherine had was to hire a cohort of new faculty, new members over a large portion of the faculty now hired during Catherine's tenure. And their drive for creativity, their excellence and their passion for their disciplines really gives us a steady flow of projects, conferences, courses, publications right across the Faculty of Public Affairs. The other, I think, key in that Catherine's leadership as dean solidified what we might call a collective identity of this unique and vibrant faculty there's an interesting mix of units in it but somehow they gel into a faculty and in fact a faculty that leads every day in areas that are important to every aspect of Canada. So I think it's fitting that we honour Catherine in this way for a record of achievement and contributions to Carlton, to Ottawa and indeed to the world. This electorship was established in recognition of Catherine's contributions to Carlton and to the field of Aboriginal policy. We are privileged to have Mary May Simon as our first speaker to this series and in fact I would like to ask our president, Dr. Roseanne O'Reilly-Runted, to introduce her to you. Roseanne. Thank you very much. Let's all give Catherine a round of applause. Thank you, come on, stand up. It's when she stepped down as dean, we asked her what she wanted and she said she wanted this lecture so thank you for that. It is a great privilege to introduce our speaker, Mary May Simon. She has devoted her life's work to gaining further recognition for Aboriginal rights, to achieving social justice for Inuit and other Aboriginal people nationally and internationally from Russia to other nations of the North. She began her career with the CBC Northern Service as a producer and announcer and Thomas, you inspired me because I bet it was the only time on the CBC they said Simon says. She subsequently was elected secretary of the board of directors of the Northern Quebec Inuit Association. She was elected president of the McEvick Corporation and went on to hold numerous positions with the Canada's national Inuit organization of which she is currently president. For 14 years she served as executive council member, president and special envoy of the Inuit Circumpolar Conference. She was one of the senior negotiators during the repatriation of the Canadian constitution at the first ministers meetings and she was member of the Nunavut Implementation Commission and ambassador for circumpolar affairs. She has also been working with the Department of Foreign Affairs as ambassador to Denmark and that position was concurrent with her circumpolar position and she was a member of the Joint Policy Advisory Commission of NAFTA's Commission on Environmental Cooperation of which she was the chairperson. She was chancellor of Trent University from 1995 to 1999. She has received many honors for her leadership in developing strategies for Aboriginal and Northern affairs. For example, she was awarded the Order of Canada, the National Order of Quebec, the Gold Order of Greenland and the National Aboriginal Achievement Award and the Gold Medal of the Royal Canadian Geographic Society. She's a fellow of the Arctic Institute of North America and the Royal Canadian Geographic Society. This introduction could go on really, really long but I always hate introductions that are longer than the speech. So I'm going to stop by saying that she has been board member of more associations than you could ever imagine. She has received honorary degrees from McGill, Queens, Trent and Memorial University and she agreed this afternoon to help Carlton University make up the error that we had in not being the first university to offer an honorary degree and accept an honorary degree this spring at Carlton University. Congratulations. So, dear Carlts, help me welcome the future graduate of Carlton University. Good luck. Good afternoon. Say good-bye to my friend Salih Webster Salih Webster. I'm Malou. Thomas Lootett. I won't call you an elder. You're an Anishinaabe man, right? First, I just want to thank Salih Webster for the very kind words and to thank, not the elder but the Anishinaabe man, Thomas Lootett for opening this event and also to thank Roseanne O'Reillyrant for the very kind introduction. I agree that introduction should be short. And for being allowed to speak here on Algonquin lands, it's a pleasure to be here and I also want to acknowledge the students that are here. I think we have some Inuit students that are here. I know some of them. I'm really pleased that you're able to be here and for everybody else for joining us today. I'm very honored to be invited to deliver the first Catherine Graham lecture on Aboriginal policy. And it is particularly special to be able to speak to you during the 2010 year of the Inuit. We made this year, the year of the Inuit because we wanted to highlight to the rest of the country that Inuit are an integral part of the Canadian identity. And I've been doing a cross-Canada tour for several years. I'm going on to three years now. Just talking to Canadians about the Canadian Arctic and the Inuit who live there. And it's been a great experience for me. My talk has been called Solventy Begins at Home because its idea is to talk to people about the fact that we have permanent communities in the Canadian Arctic and that is the best way to assert our sovereignty by our presence. So it has been a very rewarding talk across the country and I'm continuing to do it. So I guess I would start by saying that we have a really great history with Carleton University through Catherine Graham and others, Francis Abel and others that have worked with us on northern issues and issues that are important to Inuit. And we appreciate your keen interest in Inuit issues and your support as we move forward, as I said to your president, on our new Inuit Knowledge Center which is called Inuit Chawi Sapvingat. You have also been very helpful in our work on Inuit education. A topic that I know is of special interest to Catherine. And it is education which I will be focusing on today. Some of the greatest challenges, policy challenges, facing Canada, sovereignty, resource development, climate change, just to name a few, are issues with a direct impact on Inuit and Inuit communities. They are all worthy topics for my remarks. But I believe that improving outcomes in Inuit education will have the biggest impact on the health of our communities and the prosperity of our country. Undoubtedly, you have heard people frame issues of Aboriginal education in terms of the need to close the achievement gap. Although the numbers vary from community to community, we know that roughly 75% of children who enter school in Inuit regions will not complete grade 12. A number of different measures, graduation rates, participation rates, performance testing, all reveal inequities in achievement between Inuit and non-Inuit students. I will argue today that we need to reframe the discussion and view the gaps in Inuit education as a deficit worthy of a national stimulus plan. Over the past 50 years, through education policies deemed to be well-intentioned and now considered deeply flawed, our country has steadfastly accumulated an education deficit where Aboriginal peoples are concerned. The low outcomes in Aboriginal education have been called by the policy analysts, the biggest social policy challenge of our time. And today I would like to discuss why this deficit must be part of the conversation on the future of our country. Before I set out my remarks and my arguments, I want to take a few moments to place my words in context. The beauty of a discussion of this nature is the diversity of the Canadian voices that can contribute to this conversation. So I will begin my remarks by telling you who I am and the journey that has brought me here to speak to you as the president of the Inuit Tapeleit, Kanatami, the national voice of the Inuit of Canada. Incidentally, and maybe Catherine already knows, I hope that by the end of my remarks you will leave enriched by a few words of Inuititut, beginning with Inuit Tapeleit, Kanatami, which in my language means Inuit are united in Canada. Can you say that? Inuit Tapeleit, Kanatami? That's a good start. I'm an Inuit born in a small village of Kanatsoilutjot. So let's hear you say Kanatsoilutjot. On the western shore of Angava Bay in Nunavik, Quebec, my mother was Inuit and my father, a white man from the south, managed the Hudson Bay Company Post. As a young girl, I lived what was then a fairly typical lifestyle, though today it is referred to as a traditional lifestyle. We lived in tents and made our own clothes, often from caribou and seal skins, and we hunted and gathered food. Inuit continued to view this connection to wildlife and the environment as central to who we are, both as Inuit and as Canadians. This is as true today as it ever was. I grew up as many Inuits still do in a family environment that crossed generations. My maternal grandmother, Jeannie, was my first teacher and mentor. My mother, Nancy, took on that role later in my life, and they both instilled in me a boundless energy for learning and self-improvement. From my father's side of the family, I had the good fortune to learn about the south from a man who had a profound love and respect for the north, its people and its natural beauty, and recognized and valued what the south could offer his family. In the late 1940s, the government began to introduce policies and incentives to move Inuit off the land and into centralized communities where health and social support programs could be delivered. It was during this period of transition from camps to communities that I was introduced to formal education for the first time. When I was six years old, my family moved to Kujak from Kangerzwellerdrak, a larger community in northern Quebec, where I started federal day school. It was a very strange experience for me. The teaching methods were totally foreign and everything was in English. We were punished if we were caught speaking to our friends in Inuktitut, which was the only language we knew. When I reflect on this period, two words in my language come to mind. Ilira and Kapia. These words describe the combination of fear, respect and nervous apprehension that Inuit felt about Southerners, both men and women, who came north during this period. These feelings permeated our lives and our relationship with Southerners, Southern institutions and Southern values and characterized our relationship with formal education, with our relationship with formal education. It would be years before I gained the self-confidence to assert myself and my beliefs in the non-indigenous world. Throughout the 1950s and 60s, while most of Canada was experiencing a post-war economic boom, Inuit were experiencing something quite different. Many of us were forcibly resettled and had our children removed to residential schools and TB sanatoriums. Some never to return. During these decades, key decisions about our lives would be made for us and almost never by us. By the early 1970s, the political context began to change for Aboriginal people in Canada. Landmark legal decisions in British Columbia and in the North provided a new legal basis for opening discussions on Aboriginal rights to our lands and resources. I soon found myself among a small, poorly funded group of Inuit and Cree negotiating with governments and powerful industrial interests on the James Bay and Northern Quebec Agreement, the first comprehensive Aboriginal and Claims Agreement in Canada. We were young, but our experience with formal education had given us a very important skill. We spoke English. So our community leaders invested us with the responsibility to go forward and explain the Inuit world to Southerners who were intent on developing our lands without our approval or even our involvement and then return home to interpret the proposals to our elders. Today, there are approximately 55,000 Inuit living in Canada spread across two provinces and two territories from Labrador in the East to the Northwest Territories in the West. The Arctic is our homeland. We call it Inuit Nunangat. It forms one-third of this country's land mass and half of its total shoreline. Inuit do not live on reserves. We live in municipalities. We pay all taxes and we hold Canadian passports. We are spread out across 53 communities ranging in population from more than 6,000 to as few as 150. In the last decade, we have also seen a growing number of Inuit move to urban centres such as Montreal, Winnipeg, Edmonton and here in Ottawa. We have a large population of Inuit living in Ottawa. So, who are the Inuit of Canada? We are people in our own eyes in the eyes of the Constitution of Canada and in the eyes of the world. We are also proud and contributing citizens of Canada and one of this country's founding aboriginal peoples. This recognition took many years. In fact, it was only probably during the repatriation of the Canadian Constitution from Great Britain that we were able to openly discuss about our place in Canadian history and in Canada's framework. So, I think you need us and we need you as we tackle enormous global challenges such as climate change where a shared sense of humanity must eclipse all competing assertions of stand-alone sovereignty. At Inuit Taperi Canada or fondly we call it ITK our work centres on ensuring that Inuit interests are reflected in national policies affecting the Arctic and our record of achievement both politically and economically is not worthy. On the political front our four regions have settled comprehensive modern-day land claims agreements these are constitutionally protected treaties between Inuit and the Crown that provide us with a set of tools for developing our large parcels of lands and deriving benefits from the development of resources. Our land claims agreements have given us access to investment capital and we are using it to purchase different companies and businesses airlines, marine transportation firms fishing companies, industries for oil and gas development and to joint venture with companies across Canada. Yet the cost of living in the Arctic is staggering. I can fly economy class twice from Ottawa to Hong Kong for the cost of flying once from Ottawa to Pond Inlet in the high Arctic. Essential foods and commodities are also very expensive food bread in some communities can be eight dollars for one loaf while two liters of milk goes for 13 dollars. Country foods continue to be a very important part of our culture and daily lives. However hunting has become very expensive as well. It costs tens of thousands of dollars to properly equip a hunter gas as you can imagine continues to skyrocket. Some rely on the sale of seal skin to make hunting economically viable but a ban on the import of seal products in the European Union puts even this small industry in jeopardy. With few exceptions there are no road connections to the rest of Canada. Transportation is by air and sea. While air travel shrinks these distances in communities are still very isolated from the rest of Canada. Despite the tremendous distance as the Arctic is now connected by what we call modern communications all communities have some level of broadband access to connect them to Canada and to the world. Living in Kujak my husband Wittenei who is at the back there were commenting on the fact that even though we're supposed to have speed what do you call it? Internet speed? It's still very very slow like here it's almost instant but up north it's still you still have to wait 5 or 10 minutes to log on so there is a big difference even though it's supposed to be at the same level it's not. So now it is time to turn our attention to developing the capacity of Inuit to take full advantage of the opportunities now available to us. It begins among other things with improving outcomes in education. Earlier I mentioned that discussions on Aboriginal education often focus on the achievement gap between Inuit students and non-Inuit students. There is an American educator by the name of Lads and Billings who has done a lot of research on the outcomes of African Americans in schools in the United States. She argues and I agree that the concept of an achievement gap focuses attention on students not doing their part when there are other real gaps such as funding gaps, health gaps and housing gaps that directly impact student outcomes. In the Inuit context focusing solely on the student achievement gap turns our attention away from another critical dynamic that Inuit are currently engaged in a process of deconstructing education systems left over from the residential school period and constructing new systems that reflect our world view. Those of you here who are old enough to have lived through the 60s and 70s like me will remember these years as a real boom period for education in Canada. Baby boomers were just beginning to move their way through the education system necessitating an expansion in schools and teacher colleges and the introduction of progressive changes in the curriculum. This is where we are today unlike almost any other region of Canada our population is booming more than half of our population is under the age of 25 years our median age is 22 compared with 40 among non-aboriginal Canadians. So two key things are driving the need for a stimulus plan in Inuit education First, we are Canada's youngest population and this growing demographic is making its way through the school system right now. Second, we are distancing ourselves from the long shadow of residential school policy by reshaping our education systems around our history, our language, and our culture. As you can appreciate this is not done by the government this is not done overnight. For the past two years I have chaired a national process to define the road ahead for Inuit education. It began with a summit on Inuit education held in the Northwest Territories community of Inuvik in 2008. At this national gathering of educators we discussed our successes and our ambitions for our youth. The summit produced a landmark Inuit education accord an agreement between our four regions and their provincial and territorial counterparts as well as the federal government and the national Inuit organizations to work together to set national goals for Inuit education. I am pleased to say that the first ever national strategy on Inuit education is expected to be released this fall. In it we will be setting out a vision for a new era in Inuit education. It begins with a commitment to bilingual education Inuititude and either English or French. One of the things that we are up against is an uncertainty among some people that a bilingual Inuit education system is the way to improve outcomes. They argue that English dominant language in the Western world is the language that will ensure the most success for our children. I agree of course that it is important for our children to become competent in one of this country's national languages but I firmly believe that our children's success in school can be strengthened by a strong foundation in their mother tongue. And I'm not the only one that believes this. We know from research that in force dominant language education policies and I will quote now from a 2008 United Nations study. In quote result not only in considerable poor performance results but also higher levels of non-completion of school. In quote. We have seen this throughout our communities. We also know from research and from our own experience with formal schooling that dominant language teaching is not the most successful model in context such as ours. Two years ago five international experts in indigenous studies examined the published research on the success of indigenous children in schools where the language of instruction was a dominant language such as English. The main conclusion of this expert panel was and I quote the greatest predictor of long-term success in schools for indigenous children is how long they receive instruction through their first language. The length of time students receive education in their mother tongue is more important than any factor including socioeconomic status in predicting the educational success of bilingual students. The worst results are with students in programs where the students mother tongues are not supported at all or where they are only taught as subjects. But there are exceptions. So when Inuit speak about the importance of being taught in their own language we are speaking about making up for these lost years of dominant language teaching of Tidut. I should mention at this point that a 2007 examination of Canada's aboriginal languages by Statistics Canada concluded that the Inuit language is one of only three aboriginal languages in Canada spoken by a large enough population base that long-term survival is likely. So our language is strong but it must form the basis of the education system if it is to remain strong. In all four Inuit regions language policies and legislation are being introduced to support this commitment to our language. But 40 years of residential school policy has created a deficit in a number of key areas most notably the number of bilingual teachers in our schools teaching resources needed to support bilingual education and the development of Inuit scholars who can lead research and develop innovative practices. The long shadow of residential school policy has created other deficits as well including a lack of trust and support from adults who had a poor experience of education and do not value the system for their own children. Faced with dealing with school administrators and teachers or helping their children complete homework they feel inadequate. The cumulative effect is that in some of our families in some of our communities we have to rebuild trust in the system and make going to school these are just examples language and mobilizing our parents that form part of our education deficit our social housing crisis is another across the Arctic there are many cases where as many as 20 people live in a house designed for a family of four how can our children do homework in these conditions there is not time today to go into other areas that make up this deficit other than to say that we are playing catch up to the rest of Canada and in some cases to the rest of the circumpolar world in putting in place the components of an education system that will graduate our children and motivate them to learn Canada legs behind all circumpolar states in one other hugely critical area it is the only one with no university in its Arctic region so when I say that our education deficits needs a stimulus package I mean that in addition to what our provinces and territories and school boards are already doing to build education systems that reflect inuit history language and culture we need an immediate and significant investment in our education systems at all levels and by all players we need to invest in more programs like the first ever master of education program a partnership with the University of Prince Edward Island which graduated 21 students last June we need resource centers that facilitate the development and exchange of teaching materials by and for free educators we need to develop a scholarship fund as the Maori of New Zealand did 50 years ago to promote post-secondary learning we need data on what's working in inuit education and here I would like to thank Catherine, Graham and Francis Abel specifically for the background research they contributed to our national strategy it was very much appreciated they know from their own work how little inuit specific research there truly is taking one step further we need to set the research agenda for too many years we have been the subject of research about us rather than with us or by us this is slowly beginning to change at ITK as I said we have created an inuit knowledge center with a focus on Arctic research that serves the needs of inuit this approach to research affects the work that many of you do and I invite you to work with us as for a national stimulus plan for inuit education the tools of change may already exist what do I mean by this as I said at the beginning there are a number of policy issues facing our country that have their genesis in the Arctic these issues are of such significance that our federal government released a northern strategy in 2009 and just this past August foreign affairs minister Lawrence Cannon issued a document titled Canada's Arctic foreign policy while both documents make reference to promoting social and economic development the glaring gap is a discussion on improving education outcomes for inuit in other words in order for the northern strategy and Canada's Arctic foreign policy to make a meaningful contribution to Canada's prosperity and security we need healthy educated people living in Canada's Arctic moreover our country operates on the fundamental premise that education provides citizens with the tools they need to participate in social and economic life the level of education attainment of our citizens directly influences the competitiveness and prosperity of our economy so if there are segments of the Canadian population in which educational attainment falls significantly below the national average is it not in the nation's interest is it not a moral imperative to direct effort and resources to changing these circumstances the ultimate task of a leader is to take his or her society to where it has never been I view it as my duty as an inuit leader and the duty of our elected governments to put in place the decisions and actions that will foster a new era in inuit in education for inuit I will end here with a personal story for many of us there is a moment in our lives often when we first become parents that we recognize the power of the past in shaping our lives for me these opportunities come during solitary moments in the blueberry patches outside my home in Koudrak I was telling Catherine that earlier in the early part of the summer I find myself checking the bushes trying to imagine what kind of season we can expect watching the first berries ripen and then sampling delicious taste of the first berry of the year this is really where the magic begins as I grow older I have come to understand that with each passing season both the berries and the memories grow even sweeter traveling up the George river in a freighter canoe living in tents hunting, fishing and running a dog team early mornings with the ptarmigan laughing outside your tent spruce bows on the floor the crackling fire listening to the jet legends that my grandmother told us ice fishing in the winter with the frost covering the fur on our parkers all these memories are so so sweet this was our life and in every berry patch it remains so for me but hard as I try to stay in the moment invariably the glorious past gives way to the challenges of the present can we bring about the changes our children so desperately need when they grow older what will be the memories they savor then just as quickly creeping doubts turn into inspiration as I spot a new patch of blueberries and I remain and I am reminded that we live in a country that like the blueberry patch produces hope in the fullness of time so thank you very much for allowing me to do this lecture today and I welcome your questions thank you