I have enjoyed this series in the Hurontarian. However, I feel the thrust of this part misses the mark badly in places. The interview reveals that, "most (aboriginal) children don't finish grade 8" but emphasizes the importance of getting "young aboriginals to college and university." In Ontario, as we know, university tuition is free for aboriginals. However, there is a gulf, a great chasm, between grade school and aspired to post-secondary pursuits.

Further, it states Mr. Dewasha is "determined and dedicated to the notion of educating and bringing young natives to want to go to school...." In my experience as a Canadian educator over a decade-and-a-half it is quite clear, however, that motivation is internal, based in and intrinsic to, children, students, and learners, the proverbial "horse led to water". Readers come from, generally, families that prize reading for example, although our previous Lieutenant-Governor in Ontario, Hon. James K. Bartleman — of aboriginal descent — may be the exception that proves the rule. He would agree with the American licence-plates the state: "Read to Succeed". Recently passing through a First Nations' reserve, I noted the trim properties sported satellite-dishes.

Television-viewing is amazingly amotivational, but only families can restrict — or stop — it or turn it off. Mr. Bartleman's great thirst for books, which remains unimpaired to this day, evolved largely before televisions found their way to his remote, northern reserve. People seem to be able to exist in nearsqualor as long as they have the television constantly on, and these days televisions are almost always on with over three hundred (junk-filled) choices that will waste away days and create both envy and gloomy disenchantment.

Much of what Mr. Dewasha — head of Neegan Burnside — says is very nice, polite, sincere, and aspirational; however, popular motivation and real grass-roots democratic change have to occur on reserves for life thereupon to improve to provide the proper basis for his ideas to take good root and to succeed. In July we witnessed the Assembly of First Nations (A.F.N.) "elect" a new leader. It was a depressing process to witness, excluding as it did (mainly) women and and 100,000s of rank-and-file reserve-dwelling voters across Canada. When questioned the A.F.N. publicists maintained that they're "traditional" so this was okay, and questioning 'tradition' was likely "racist" in its overtones. This sort of charge or allegation shuts down mainstream Canadian media enquiries and reporting p.d.q.

When you eliminate 98% of reserve-dwellers from having a meaningful say in, when you exclude women because of "tradition" from, democracy, then no chronic aboriginal problem is surmountable and money just buys expensive 'band-aids', even when it's denominated in billions. The A.F.N. governance structure in its undemocratic form — and we are arrived at 2009 in a free country — in its rotten -ness is the real, underlying problem on our reserves and, as a result, what Mr. Dewasha proposes is nice, but his propositions are really quite like a building without strong, proper, or sound foundations for the future, 'though they may help a few for the while.
Rob. Bredin
Orangeville