Ottawa Had One (Education) Job

Last week, we wrote to you about the importance of keeping Ottawa out of our provincial education system.

The Constitution makes clear that:

“In and for each Province, the Legislature may exclusively make Laws in relation to Education”.

But, we did note one exception to that rule:

“This is not in relation to education on Indigenous reserves or 'Jordan's Principle' funding for some educational purpose, which courts have found to be a federal responsibility.”

And that’s what we want to talk about in this week’s email.

Because, predictably, in the one area that the federal government does have a role to play - funding for First Nations education - they’re failing.

In fact, the federal government is attacking school choice for First Nations families and making top-down decisions with no consultation.

So, read on to learn more about what’s happening and why this matters for all parents, not just First Nations parents.

What Is Jordan's Principle?

Starting in 2016, in a series of decisions, Ottawa was found to be discriminating against First Nations members on the basis of their First Nations membership.

Ottawa was even found to be too quickly dissolving first-nation-member parental rights and removing children from their families.

To be clear, these findings did not cover Ottawa’s actions in the 1800s or the 1960s, but the 1990s and 2000s.

Within the lifetime of any of us with kids in K-12 schools (or older), Ottawa was found to be violating parental rights and removing children from their parents.

That they were First Nations families Ottawa was destroying in their zeal to meddle is at least largely because those are the families Ottawa has jurisdiction over.

Child services is otherwise a provincial jurisdiction.

In a rare move of pretending to care about provincial jurisdiction, Ottawa was also claiming “off-reserve” first-nation-member children should have health, social, and educational needs downloaded onto provinces.

Of course, many times, families went “off-reserve” specifically to seek fulfillment of these needs.

This generated a stand-off, with neither provinces or Ottawa willing to pay.

All this wrangling culminated in the death of 5-year-old child Jordan River Anderson in a Manitoba hospital, when he should have had life-saving, home-based care.

Thus, “Jordan’s Principle” was established as a legal obligation for Ottawa to pay for any first-nation-member health, social, or educational needs and sort out the jurisdiction only after assuring the care.

This is how Ottawa’s jurisdiction over First Nations students has extended outside of the geographic boundaries of the nations themselves, through funding, but not direct control.

Collective Punishment

Since the program launched in 2016, over 8.9 million products, services, and supports have been distributed under Jordan's Principle.

This includes everything from medical equipment to educational supports.

However, more recently, the program has come under fire for scope creep - with applications for things like modelling headshots, gaming consoles, and bicycles being submitted.

In response, the federal government issued an operational bulletin to limit the scope of things that could be applied for under Jordan’s Principle.

Unfortunately, the change - made without any consultation - is impacting legitimate expenses too!

Here it is directly from Ottawa’s “Operational Bulletin” in a list of what will not be approved:

School-related requests, unless linked to the specific health, social or educational need of the First Nations child. Supports to school boards off-reserve and private schools will be redirected to provincial school boards, or other existing provincial and federally-funded programs.

In other words, first-nation-member kids - whose educations are federally funded - are having their school choice defunded by Ottawa.

You see why we can't let Ottawa expand their reach in education!

These restrictions on Jordan’s Principle fund are also an example of collective punishment.

No one is claiming there were not abusive applications for Jordan’s Principle funding under the old system - which were nevertheless being granted by Ottawa!

But, many nations and “off-reserve” individuals were not making abusive applications.

Those honest nations and individuals are also having recreation and education funding cut off.

This creates a perverse incentive.

Might as well be dishonest and reap the benefits while you can.

It makes suckers out of the honest.

We see the same thing with common attacks on home education and independent schools.

Because one actor accessed money they shouldn't have, and the government gave it to them, for years on end, honest people come under attack.

Hopefully, anyone who can see this is unjust here, can see it’s unjust when applied to home education and independent school families - and vice versa.

One-Size-Fits-None

Ottawa also requires the education authorities (and other government entities) within the geographical boundaries of the nations themselves to apply for funding, in the case of shortfalls, through the Jordan’s Principle system.

This means “on-reserve” education funding has been profoundly affected by Ottawa’s “Operational Bulletin”, as well.

But whether on- or off-reserve, it’s not just education funding.

“Requests to support sporting events or elite/competitive sport related training, unless they are linked to the specific health, social, or educational needs of the First Nations child.”

As you may have gathered, the caveat, “unless they are linked to the specific health, social, or educational needs of the First Nations child” is simply to avoid admitting lack of compliance with Jordan's Principle in the bulletin itself.

If it were as broad as it would seem on the surface, then any “school-related requests” would be “linked to the specific … educational needs of the First Nations child.”

Of course, since Jordan’s Principle only applies to children, “competitive sport related training” is often intertwined with their schooling.

For many first-nation-member children, competitive sports and the related educational opportunities are the opportunities they left the boundaries of their nation to pursue.

While applications have ballooned, and surely some of them are not good faith applications, just as surely, this categorical approach is not the solution.

As one Alberta Parents’ Union and Bigstone Cree Nation member, Travis Gladue-Beauregard said,

“Presumptively denying any school-related or sports requests, but not a whole host of other interventions my people aren’t asking for access to? I don’t know. It feels like just one more Ottawa agenda forced down upon us.”

This is just one more example of the failure of trying to make a top-down, one-size-fits-all rule for, in this case, 650 First Nations.

Parents are the real experts in their own kids, and local knowledge will always be better than top-heavy, centralized, Ottawa knowledge.

So it’s no great surprise that Ottawa is botching its one (education) job.

We have always said that parents know better than politicians - particularly Ottawa politicians.

The surprise is that the Alberta Teachers' Association (ATA) continues to advocate for Ottawa to have a larger role in education - at least in part because they think Ottawa ought to be preaching to us about reconciliation!

Give us a break.

If, for all these reasons, Ottawa is doing such a terrible job with their only role in education, why does the ATA want to expand it?

The Alberta government they attack constantly, by contrast, outperforms almost the entire world in providing a quality education.

We should not be satisfied by the education our children are receiving, but neither should we assume Ottawa would do it better.

The call for Ottawa to take over education isn’t driven by a desire for quality, but ideology.

The ATA just doesn’t believe they can convince Albertans to advance their agenda, but they think Ottawa gives them a better chance.

Thank you for standing up to the ATA agenda and signing our petition to Keep Ottawa Out of Alberta Education! 

Now, we need your help to get this petition in front of more eyes. 

If you can make a donation today, that would greatly help with our campaign:

Sticking to Our One Job,

-Jeff and the Alberta Parents’ Union Team

P.S. We hear you might be seeing federal politicians at your door. Ask them about Jordan’s Principle and how they would fix it. Make sure they know you expect Ottawa to stay out of Alberta Education.