Ministers announce funding for Aboriginal education

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Ministers from Queen’s Park were on the Six Nations reserve today, bringing funding for Aboriginal education. This, in the wake of truth and reconciliation revelations about seven generations of residential schools. The key recommendation from that report was the need for education.

Rick Hill was the prestigious head of the Indigenous department at the Smithsonian. But one day he drove by Six Nations Polytechnic in his home town of Ohsweken, and realized what he really wanted to do. “To help our own young people understand their own history, their own place in the world.” He’s helped develop an archive of traditional knowledge at the school. “You grow up not speaking your heritage language, it’s almost embarrassing. It was the residential schools that took the languages away. And bringing it back isn’t easy.”

“We now know, we now acknowledge that history, and the best way to fix it is doing what we’re doing today” said Brant MPP Dave Levac.

Ontario ministers brought news of funding to this school, and eight other aboriginal institutions. It’s a total of 97 million over three years, five million more than what was already budgeted.