"B.C. Native Students Slam Federal Cuts" Clipping Part 1

[Transcript] Volume 22, No. 23, Mar. 30, 1989.
The
Voice
B.C. native students
slam federal cuts
BY PHILLIPA BECK
“Scream your name, say it loud: 
'I am not a non-status, I am not a Bill
C-31.' Our ancestors come from the
land this building stands on — be
proud of that,” UBC Native Union
Vice Chief Phil Stewart told 80 nat-
ive students who occupied the
Department of Indian Affairs office
last Wednesday.
More than 500 native students
from campuses across the Lower
Mainland rallied at Robson Square,
then marched to the DIA’s down-
town Vancouver office to protest
Ottawa’s $26 million cap on finan-
cial aid for native students, which
takes effect April 1.
Speaker after speaker slammed
Indian Affairs Minister Pierre
Cadieux’ statement in the March 21
Province that “native people have
been getting a free ride.”
Five hundred native students
cheered when one speaker yelled
“We say to Brian Mulroney and
Pierre Cadieux: Give us your homes
and your prime real estate — we’ll
gladly redistribute it and feed scraps
of it to your children."
The new education policy drasti-
cally cuts native education funding.
Student assistance for travel subsi-
dies, housing and shelter, and day-
UBC Native Students' Union Co-
ordinator Bev Scow said native
students reject the new policy
because they had no "real, honest
consultation with the Department of
Indian Affairs.”
Scow said that Prime Minister
Mulroney promised at the last First
Ministers' Conference there would
be no changes to native education
policy without prior consultation.
Five hundred native
students cheered when one
speaker yelled "We say to
Brian Mulroney and Pierre
Cadieux: Give us your
homes and your prime real
estate — we'll gladly redis-
tribute it and feed scraps of
it to your children."
Regional DIA officers introdu-
ced the policy in June and gave nat-
ive bands five months to respond.
Some sent in written responses
rejecting the policy. Others simply
kicked DIA personnel off their
reserves when they came to make
the presentations.
"It was a protest," Scow said.
“No one in DIA is native, there was
no input from native people in the
research or drafting stages, and it
says nothing about self-
Five years ago the Assembly of
First Nations received a $6 million
federal government grant to eval-
uate native education. They produ-
ced a four volume review and 54
recommendations, Scow said.
"None of that came out in the new
policy. What’s the point of giving
them all that money if nothing is
taken into account?”
"One thousand native students
were unable to attend school after
September 1987 when the provin-
cial government started its first
funding freeze, Scow said.
The daycare cuts will eliminate
returning, mature students who
have families, she added.
Carol Buswa, a native student in
Thunder Bay, said she will not be
able to afford to travel the 400 km
from her reserve to college after
April 1.
Scow said that, in Canada, the
death rate of native people is four
times higher than that of non-
natives. Thirty percent of prison in-
mates are native, while they are
make up two per cent of the popula-
tion. Native students have the
highest high school drop-out rate;
only one or two per cent graduate.
see Indian students page 2