blatant hypocrisy

While the governments at all levels like to say that they support literacy for First Nations people, their actions speak louder than words.

This week the First Nations Technical Institute announced that funding cuts may force them to close. Established in 1985, FNTI is highly-regarded and successful. However, it does not receive direct operational funding as other colleges and universities in Ontario do. Now the federal and provincial governments are squabbling over who should fund it.

The UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous People (which Canada did not sign) includes the following:

Article 13 - Indigenous peoples have the right to revitalize, use, develop and transmit to future generations their histories, languages, oral traditions, philosophies, writing systems and literatures, and to designate and retain their own names for communities, places and persons. … States shall take effective measures to ensure that this right is protected…

Article 14 - Indigenous peoples have the right to establish and control their educational systems and institutions providing education in their own languages, in a manner appropriate to their cultural methods of teaching and learning… States shall, in conjunction with indigenous peoples, take effective measures, in order for indigenous individuals…to an education in their own culture and provided in their own language.

Please help FNTI fight for equity. Sign their online petition.