As McGill celebrates its 14th Indigenous Awareness Week, post-secondary institutions in Montreal are taking steps toward addressing disparities for Indigenous students in higher education. This is particularly evident in Concordia’s tuition exemption, announced last month, and the Dawson Student Union’s petition to exempt Indigenous students from Law 14.
These actions reflect the efforts to address the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s ninth call to action, where the federal government reports on the fiscal parity in education. They also address the need to close the education gap for Indigenous students and non- Indigenous students, including Indigenous students on and off reservations, as exhibited in the eighth call to action.
Starting this fall, Concordia will be addressing the 10th call of adequately funding education for Indigenous students. McGill announced a similar policy in June where the university would cover tuition fees for Indigenous students from nearby First Nation communities. However, Concordia is the first to implement its policy across the province. In this policy, the school mitigates fiscal barriers to post-secondary education by exempting Indigenous students in Quebec from tuition fees. This includes those who live remotely, such as in fly-in communities, as well as those inhabiting urban communities. Canadian post- secondary institutions outside Quebec have implemented similar tuition waivers, notably Humber College, the University of Toronto, and the University of Waterloo.
While fiscal barriers to educational equity are being reduced, the same cannot be said in terms of language. Last month, the student union at Dawson College (DSU), an English-language CEGEP, petitioned for the exemption of Indigenous students from the additional language requirements enforced by Law 14. According to this law, all students enrolled in an anglophone CEGEP must take an exit exam in French and take additional French courses, deterring Indigenous students from pursuing post- secondary studies according to the DSU. These requirements force Indigenous students to choose between attending these post-secondary institutions or learning and preserving their own languages and cultural identities.
Mia Fischlin, the Administrative Student Affairs Coordinator in the Indigenous Studies Program, further affirmed that settlers imposed their languages on Indigenous peoples and “under no circumstances should another colonial language still be enforced.” Considering many Indigenous students are learning French as their third language, they face additional barriers compared to their francophone and anglophone peers. Many Indigenous students say they will not continue employing the language after graduation as they plan to return to their communities or work in Indigenous organizations. Thus, as French may not coincide with their future professional and cultural paths, “learning French, for many Indigenous people, is a form of assimilation,” Fischlin said.
Other barriers to Indigenous youth’s involvement in CEGEP include Law 14’s admissions cap and prioritization of students with certificates to be taught in English. While Indigenous students may be exempt from the language exam, it is unlikely that they can avoid additional French courses, demonstrating the Bill’s lack of Indigenous consultation regarding equitable exemptions.
This lack of awareness of the plurality in our education system was exemplified in Fischlin’s account of her time at McGill, where Indigenous peoples such as her own family members were excluded from academic discourses due to their time in residential schools. These institutions were created by the church and the Canadian government to assimilate generations of Indigenous children into a homogenous Canadian population. As a result, Indigenous students face different obstacles than their peers which extend to post-secondary education, a discrepancy that the Truth and Reconciliation Commission addresses.
Moreover, the Dawson Student Union plans to take their petition to exempt Indigenous students from Law 14’s language requirements to the National Assembly of Quebec. Criticism of the law has also stemmed from other English CEGEP institutions who have contacted Quebec Premier François Legault to address these discrepancies in consultation with Indigenous peoples. This exemplifies the need in Quebec’s bilingualism to address the plurality of Indigenous peoples in the province.
According to Fischlin, it is important to “account [for] the reality of all the people living in so-called Canada.” Until then, she believes our education system remains an extension of settler- colonialism as it “overwhelmingly favours settler histories.”