Phil Fontaine

Phil Fontaine speaks to a crowd of about 100 at TRU

As mentioned in a previous blog post, I went and saw Phil Fontaine, former national chief of the Assembly of First Nations when he spoke at Thompson Rivers University. While he was there, I asked him what he thought the role of self-government was in First Nations communities and I wanted to share some of his words with you.

Standing in front of a crowd of about 100 people, he spoke about the importance of self-determination.

“All peoples of the world have the right to govern themselves. All peoples in the world have the right to handle their own business. That right was denied to our people for a long time and it’s been only in recent history that First Nations people were able to exercise the right to govern themselves,” he said.

“The courts have rendered favourable decisions. The United Nations, most recently with the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous People, the right to land, the right to self-rule or self-government, human rights... and the most effective way of bringing about change, in my opinion, is through self-determination. People have to be empowered to make the decisions that affect them and we see that the most, the most impressive progress that’s been made to achieve is self-government. Again there’s residential schools produced very few graduates. In fact in 1952, there were maybe 10 First Nations students in university in the entire country and today there are close to 30,000. One point in addition to the one I want to make, because of poverty we’re at this number, the number ought to be three times higher. We should have 90,000 at universities and colleges today, that’s the significant gap that exists. Though the number 30,000 is impressive, that was partially the result of First Nations communities finally being able to exercise the real controls over our education system and that is only made possible.”

When he reflected on when changes were made, he noted they’ve only happened in the recent past.

“The first locally controlled school on an Indian reserve, First Nations community, was in 1973. 1973. How many years is that? 27, 37 years. Recent history and that’s when the numbers started because people have to have a sense of ownership over institutions such as the education system. If that’s denied, you’re not going to succeed as well as those people that take it for granted that the education system is all about them so I absolutely believe that self-determination is the underpinning of anything of significance in the lives of aboriginal people and especially when we talk in terms of the positive transformation. Study after study after study including some of the most prestigious education institutions in the world, Harvard, made it very clear, self-determination has to be the centre piece in whatever we embark on,” he said.

 I agree with his words. Culture differs greatly from one people to another and I think it’s only fair that First Nations communities establish institutions that work for them and are not externally dictated. If that doesn’t happen then the process of colonization is still continuing.