Back to Paul Martin urges big investments in aboriginal education Paul Martin urges big investments in aboriginal education January 13, 2012 Bruce Campion-Smith Former prime minister Paul Martin told the Liberal convention on Friday that the upcoming meeting with native leaders in Ottawa is a chance for the Tories to undo the damage caused when they scuttled the Liberals’ 2005 Kelowna Accord.Adrian Wyld/THE CANADIAN PRESS OTTAWA—Significant investments in aboriginal education must be front and centre at a key meeting between the federal government and First Nations leaders later this month, says former prime minister Paul Martin. The Jan. 24 meeting in Ottawa is a chance for the Tories to undo the damage caused when they scuttled the Liberals’ 2005 Kelowna Accord, ending promised investments in education and setting back aboriginal youth, Martin said. “When they deferred that funding on education, they walked away from a young person’s future,” Martin told a workshop at the Liberal convention on Friday. “There are kids who at the time of Kelowna were 6 years old who are now 12 and 13 getting ready for high school and they’re dropping out because they can’t read and write,” Martin said. “If Kelowna had gone ahead, they would have.” Prime Minister Stephen Harper and senior officials will meet with First Nations leaders to discuss ways to boost the quality of life and economic prosperity of aboriginal peoples. Martin said the sobering outcomes of aboriginal education show the urgent need for the issue to top the agenda of the meeting. “When you take a look at the high school drop-out rates among aboriginal Canadians, which are just abysmal compared to other Canadians, it’s pretty clear that education is the foundation of anybody succeeding in today’s world,” he said. Martin said the Kelowna Accord, which laid out funding for aboriginal housing, education, clean water and economic development, was “one of the most important events in Canadian public life.” Yet the Conservatives scrapped the accord soon after taking power in early 2006, denouncing the agreement as little more than a news release hammered out on the eve of the Liberal minority government’s collapse in November 2005. But Martin said Friday the agreement had been more than a year in the making with prolonged negotiations with the provinces, territories and aboriginal leaders and backed by the promise of $5 billion in funding over five years. And he singled out its promise to raise aboriginal education to same level offered other Canadians as among its most important elements. “The fact that a Conservative government . . . walked away from providing the same funding for aboriginal education as is provided for non-aboriginal education is nothing else but an act of discrimination against the youngest and fastest growing segment of our population,” Martin said. He also accused the Tories of shortchanging aboriginal peoples on health care, noting the rise in tuberculosis, diabetes and drug abuse. “That is a health care of which no one in this country can be proud and it is a federal government responsibility and they are not spending enough money on it and they aren’t spending enough attention on it,” he said.
