"B.C. Native Students Slam Federal Cuts" Clipping Part 2

[Transcript] serving the campuses of Vancouver Community College
Indian students protest
continued from page 1
"This federal education policy
will only keep us here, because it
denies us access to education,"
Scow said.
'This federal education
policy will only keep us
here, because it denies us
access to education.
She said the only means the First
Nations People have of overcoming
centuries of oppression is through
education, and that anything else is
“highly offensive, and a means of
manipulating us."
Native students protested the new
education policy across the country
Wednesday.
Three hundred students in both
Nova Scotia and New Brunswick.
marched to DIA offices. In Ottawa
native chiefs in ceremonial dress
talked to 300 people at the Parlia-
ment buildings. One hundred and
fifty people demonstrated at the
Regina Legislature, and 75 protes-
ted at the Fredericton Legislature. In
Winnipeg and Saskatoon hundreds
of students chanted outside the DlA
offices. Six hundred people demon-
strated in Sudbury. Three hundred
marched in Thunder Bay, where
nine students are now on a hunger
strike at the DIA offices.
In BC, native students occupied
DIA offices in Vancouver,
Nanaimo and Terrace. At the
Vancouver DIA office a native
student asked spokesperson Ron
Penner if he could ask him a
personal question.
'No one in DIA is native,
there was no input from nat-
ive people in the research of
drafting stages, and it says
nothing a out self-
government.'
"Do you have a degree?"
"Yes," Penner replied.
“Would a native person need the
same education today for your job?"
“The specifications and expertise
necessary for this field of work
would require post secondary edu-
cation, yes."
"That's what we're here for."