Canadian settlers devote a lot of rhetorical space to the fact that Native kids get “free school” and, like the tax myth, it’s a stubbornly persistent one that suggests special treatment and a supposedly unfair advantage.
According to Stats Canada, about 32.1% of Aboriginal students graduate from high school. This number is stunningly low, especially when compared to 82.5 for non-Aboriginal students. There is no reasonable excuse for pathetic numbers like this, and it is absolutely a consequence of Canada’s policies towards Aboriginal peoples. Funding disparities from anywhere between 20% to 40% per student per year, rural isolation, poverty and the poor condition of many of the schools themselves are all contributing factors and challenges that most other children in Canada will never encounter.
But, I digress.
Meeting and exceeding the unique challenges faced by Aboriginal students, about half of that 32.1% go on to access post-secondary education (51.1%). Despite exemplifying the supposed virtues of determination, hard-work, perseverance (and whatever boot-strappyness is), these students are vilified by Canada’s upsettler contingent because the upsettler is under the impression that these students have had everything handed to them, paid for by the upsettler’s “tax money.”
These people forget a few things, namely
- Education in Canada is subsidized by the state at all levels, for everyone. Most Native kids aren’t getting anything that everyone else isn’t already getting, and due to funding disparities are actually getting much less.
- Only status holders, those registered under the Indian Act, are entitled to greater tuition subsidies. Many people counted as Aboriginal are non-status, including people like me.
So the people wringing their hands over the grand larceny committed by Native kids attending college or university is being done over an unbelievably small amount of people.
Another thing which should be under consideration is that FNs registered under the Indian Act provide much of their own funding through trusts, own source and resource revenues and suspence accounts administered by AANDC. The amount of funding derived from taxation is a matter of pure conjecture, and in any case, most Aboriginal people pay all taxes anyway.
The long and short of this is that we aren’t truly getting anything for free, and this is without mentioning that education is a treaty right affirmed by the constitution in most cases, and is a matter of legislation for all others.
So the problem isn’t that we’re getting “free school” the problem is that the very idea of Native kids who’ve had the temerity to succeed despite very long odds burns upsettler asses.
They’ll condemn us for not exceeding the challenges we face, and chalk it up to some inherent racial deficiency, or they’ll piss and moan whenever we do succeed and then try to take personal credit for it.
You have no idea how many times I’ve been told I should be thankful because I’m not poor.
Sun, Feb 23rd 2014 at 13 PM