Analysis of the Education Partnerships Program

By Sylvia McAdam Saysewahum

Folks, this is a long post but its very important and I need you to understand that
our Treaty term and promise to education is being encroached upon and is at
risk. For those places that didn't take Treaty, your jurisdiction and authority to
educate your children as Nations is also at risk. EVERY Nation is at risk and is
subjected to this. I'm going to explain it as best as I can and to the best of my
knowledge of what is going on so here goes.

Next week (Dec. 3-7), there will be a meeting to pass a resolution supporting an
MC (memorandum to cabinet) at the AFN Indian Act Chief's gathering. The
contents of this memorandum will domesticate and relegate our jurisdiction and
authority over education to each province. The resolution itself sounds great and
beautiful and money supposedly is increased however, here is the problem:

1. The MC has a clause which pre-determines where "Indian" education monies

will go. It will go to what is called "Education Partnerships Program" (see link
below) that "partners" each reserve to a provincial funding formula which has
certain requirements that need to be met before money will be "unlocked". The
funding formula is a provincial formula that has had no "Indian" say or input or
consent. Which is why its a pre-determined funding framework that will once
again put monies into the hands of systems that are not our own.

2. The provinces have had 40 YEARS of funding for their education systems. The
Indigenous education systems have been underfunded for so long, it will take a
long time for them to "catch up" but there is no extra monies for them to "catch
up" nor retroactive increase to compensate for the years of underfunding.

3. The colonial government says there is money as soon as the MC is passed and
the money will be "unlocked". The money is ours, why do we have to "dance" to
their pre-determined funding framework before its "unlocked"?

AFN, FSIN, INAC and the colonial government are moving very FAST on this and
are not giving the rights holders time nor the information to properly make an
informed decision to these processes. Also, they say there will be funding
increases yet there has been no time to assess if this is true. The colonial entities
have shown time and again, their systems FAIL us. WHY would we agree to hand
over education dollars to provincial entities?

The provinces are salivating with their hands out eager to take our monies once
again creating jobs for their systems. If we say we are "Nations", we must act as
nations. Russia would never take China's education systems and give it over to
their provincial systems. That's unheard of, YET this is what's happening for us.
We need our own processes that are Treaty based.
Please contact your Indian Act leadership to stop that MC from passing next
week, the "discussions" are in the final stages. It always seem like the leadership
are "corralled" into accepting poor and awful deals. The MC is putting "whipped
cream on shit but its still shit", there's promising, beautiful words in the MC but
at the end of the day, when the money gets transferred to the provinces it will
domesticate and extinguish our Treaty term and promise to education. Please,
lets stop it from happening.
I think its time to abolish or get control of the AFN and other neechie
organizations like FSIN that have lost their focus and are now becoming an
apparatus of the colonial agenda. I know there are other neechie organizations
that are doing all that they can to protect Treaty though and I am grateful to them
for their work. A few of them are responsible for sounding the alarm on this issue
so I am thankful to them for keeping their focus.
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