Chapter 3: Implications for 21st century Canadian public education policy making -- Addressing the Canadian Territories' First Nations Education Control (fn1)

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Addressing the Canadian Territories' First Nations Education Control (fn1)

   Why a 20th century Canadian public education policy big picture? Looking from the vantage point of the first decade of the 20^th century, the Northwest Territories, Nunavut and Yukon are now misrepresented in Section 93 of the Constitution of Canada. This misrepresentation is creating second-class status and discrimination, nothing new in experience in Canada for First Nations/Inuit/Metis. However, this provides a “problem” that a scholar might want to study and see adjusted. Education control is agreed to have "devolved" to the Canadian Territories but this understanding is not understood as a fact in educational policy studies departments. 

   How is "legislation" altered? Through royal commissions. How can Canadians construct a National Commission to address a focus of this dissertation, the secondary status of the Canadian Territories in section 93 of the Constitution of Canada? The long view of a history is informative. It provides a perspective that is lost when the focus is on the short term issues. Often these perspectives are politically motivated where what is required is an interpretation of the literature that creates the policy history. In a construction such as that offered by Ronald Manzer in his 1994 book "Public Schools and Political Ideas: Canadian Educational Policy in Historical Perspective," there is no Canadian Territories treatment. How can this be rectified? It can be rectified through inclusion of these systems into a comparative overview providing a historical comparative and positioning. Inclusion raises further perspectives and ‘problems’. Separate but equal acknowledgment given to First Nations/Inuit/Metis is important. In my opinion, a revised section 93 would provide a “pre-colonial virtual space" for Canada's Aboriginal peoples. Such policy inclusion would also offer a bureaucratic foundation and recognition to the issue of healing required in order to cope with Canada's policy of “integration” that existed into the 20th century, as well as providing a bureaucratic constitutional response to the damage done by residential schools. Additionally, perhaps all aspects of "education" that are assumed by non-First-Nations as desirable, are understood by First Nations/Inuit/Metis as indoctrinating and hostile. They may wish to apply their own term to “education” within their domain as they work with the new recognition a constitutional space would extend to them. Perhaps through a separate but equal system, First Nations/Inuit/Metis "education" can define itself relative to the Canadian state and speak as a whole to what is currently designated and negated in Section 93.

      Is Quebec signatory to the Constitution of Canada? No. Elijah Harper blocked unanimous consent to a motion allowing the Manitoba assembly to vote on the 1987 Accord framed to amend and bring Quebec in the 1982 Constitution Act. Elijah Harper argued that the 1987 Accord did not involve the participation of Canada's First Nations/Inuit/Metis. He also opposed the Charlottetown Accord in 1992. There are three fundamental historical players in Canada's formation as a country. Two entities are referred to as the "founding nations" English and French Canada. A third historical player is Canada's First Nations/Inuit/Metis, the Canadian Aboriginal peoples existing before European involvement. The three fundamental players in centralizing Canadian public education policy, drawing from this example, are the two founding nations and Canada's aboriginal peoples. Therefore, it is necessary to create a bureaucratic category that recognizes Aboriginal education as a separate but equal entity in a revised section 93 of the Constitution. A Canadian referendum would be necessary pending recommendations from a National Commission on Canadian Education considering among other issues, revision to Section 93 in the Constitution of Canada. How would a National Commission approach the issue without understanding the essential public education policy commissions, reports and other important governmental inquiries?  How would a National Commission approach the issue without a collation of the essential public education policy commissions, reports and other important governmental inquiries and without initial research by a scholar who organizes it and makes it available? The first step to change is reconstructing lost public policy history.

fn1 I have not consulted with any First Nations on the idea of equal but separate status for First Nations in section 93 of the Constitution of Canada. It is my own idea. My work comes from a humanistic tradition that is a consequence of my Unitarian background. I would say to University of Alberta that what I do is not "appropriating" because I respect that First Nations are the final decision makers.