Liberal opposition leader Michael Ignatieff travelled to Thompson to talk with University College of the North (UCN) students Nov. 19.
Ignatieff had a busy regional schedule last week, visiting Winnipeg, Thompson and Kenora, Ont. While he was in Thompson he spoke to students at UCN about his commitment to education and also fielded questions and concerns they had.
Some of the concerns the students raised included claims aboriginal people are not getting as many resources as other cultural groups, such as francophones, and the stark differences between the quality of education in provincial schools as compared to schools on First Nations communities. A lack of affordable child care was also a key issue, along with creating more support systems for aboriginal students and the issue of teen pregnancy and adult illiteracy.
According to Ignatieff, not every Canadian currently has equal opportunities for education, especially aboriginal Canadians and new Canadians. He says he wants to help combat this by calling on the federal government to remove the cap on investment in aboriginal education that the Liberal party introduced in 1996.
"We had to put it in because we had to get the deficit under control," Ignatieff explained to the students and teachers that were assembled. "It put a limit of two per cent growth on what the federal government could invest in education, and it's meant that there are a lot of band councils in Manitoba and across the country who have bright people who want to go to post-secondary education but they haven't got the funding to do it."
Ignatieff says his commitments as leader of the Liberal party include lifting the cap on post-secondary education spending and focusing on early learning and childcare for every Canadian family.
"Education is the best anti-poverty program we've got, it's the best opportunity program we've got," he stresses.
Another of the issues Ignatieff talked to students about was the preservation of aboriginal languages and culture.
"I know that the place of elders in the education system here is a wonderful thing. Universities are not going to grow unless they reach out, unless the learning we're talking about is shared by the community, and that means respect for the language and the cultivation of the language," he reasons. "The aboriginal languages in Canada are a treasure house for our country, they're part of the heritage of all Canadians, whether you speak it or you don't. And it would be a very poor country and a very poor future if we ended up with only two official languages."
Ignatieff also made the point that although the North has been made strong by natural resources and the mining industry, Canada has no "assured future" based on natural resources alone, but rather on the education of all Canadians.
Ignatieff made sure he told the crowd about how important education has been in his life - allowing him to hold senior positions at Oxford University, Harvard University, the University of Toronto and Cambridge University before entering into politics.
