If this is oppression, discrimination, colonization, land-theft...

 

A recent announcement (Education agreement worth $1B signed in Kahnawake) informs us that an additional $310 Million has been added to a Federal Government program so as to arrive at a $1.1 Billion, 5-year education budget for 5,800 students in 22 First Nations communities in Quebec.

That new money, alone, amounts to $53,000 per student (roughly $11,000 for each year) and is apparently intended to promote instruction in endangered indigenous languages. That means the total budgetary allocations, per First Nations student, per year, will amount to $38,000. 

By way of context, and using 2017 numbers, the Province of Quebec's Ministry of Education budgeted $13,000, per student, per year - barely above what the feds have just agreed to fork out, annually, for only one modest aspect of the indigenous students' overall education.

Thirty-eight thousand versus thirteen thousand per year: doing the math, that difference comes to $125,000 more dollars being directed towards each indigenous child's education in the Province over a 5-year period versus its non-indigenous students. However, it bears noting that costs of materials and labour in comparatively distant communities are going to be a good 30% higher, reducing that difference to $87,500  So, by way of further context, that duly-adjusted differential, alone, would pay for 3.5 years of all-expense-paid (tuition, residence, meals, books, transportation included) attendance for a Canadian-resident student in a typical arts program at the prestigious McGill University in Montreal. 

Seen from an outcomes-based perspective, the above is the financial difference between competing in the workforce with a high school diploma (no trade school/apprenticeship, the subsidized costs of which are not included) versus a post-graduate (Arts) degree from McGill. Alternatively, it translates into much (if not all) of the complete cost of a UQAM MBA degree. 

Now, which of those two outcomes, a high-school diploma versus an MBA degree, is likely to translate into a lifelong six-figure career? Or, forget the MBA difference: StatsCan tells us that a college degree, by itself, will translate into a >$22,000 (median) per year income advantage versus just a high school diploma. Over a 40-year career, the cumulative benefit would approach $1 million.

So, a free post-secondary degree and a $900,000+ lifetime income boost; please, somebody tell me how that's concrete evidence of ongoing oppression, discrimination, colonization and land-theft. Put another way, how is that not considerable reparation for past inequities, bearing in mind that today's non-indigenous students had no hand, whatsoever, in perpetrating those inequities? 

And all that leaves out, entirely, the monies awarded First Nations communities pursuant to things like the Truth and Reconciliation Committee's hearings, payments which take into account residential school injustices.

 (NB: that Quebec-resident indigenous students of the Federally funded program don't all go on to become degree-holders earning a median $63,000 per year is for another discussion, as is the fact that doing so would require living other than in one of those 22 communities. The point, here, is that the funding basis for them earning $63,000/year is arguably there, whereas the funding basis for their non-indigenous counterparts translates into just over a median $41,000 per year.)

Regrettably, the past decades' worth of experience casts serious doubt on the prospects for such a potential being realized. Indeed, more likely is the prospect of underwhelming results giving rise to demands for even more funds at some point or other, all the while finding any number of reasons to blame "structural racism" for the needed additional monies - monies borrowed, at interest, on taxpayers' behalf and paid over time by same. (Fair notice: before jumping on that mention of "taxpayers," no, "status indians" on reserves are not automatically exempt from paying taxes, save for on-reserve properties/incomes.) 

And where, exactly, the mounds of funds paid out with little or no results are actually going is one of those sensible questions for which no authoritative inquiries or satisfactory answers ever seem to ensue. Funny, that.

In the end, them, am I writing this because I begrudge the beneficiaries the money? No. I am writing it because the current (and typical) media coverage is critically bereft of any sense of proportion or comparative context, thereby ignoring, entirely, those payments' significance and impressive potential. That omission, in turn, leaves the door wrongly open for future claims of victimhood and rampant racism, claims that seem to be at the core of a grey-market cottage industry in the country.