Canadians need to agree on the hard fact of modern life that education is a prerequisite for economic success 

NationTalk: Financial Post – From 2017 through 2021, 1.45 non-Indigenous Canadians in 100,000 died from homicide. Among Indigenous Canadians the rate was six times that: 8.88 in 100,000. That average masks a stark regional difference, however. In B.C., Ontario and Quebec, the Indigenous homicide rate is “only” three times the average for non-Indigenous Canadians. But in the Prairie provinces it is 10 times the non-Indigenous rate. Over the five years 2017-21 two-thirds of all Indigenous homicides took place in the Prairies.

Nationally, three quarters of both Indigenous and non-Indigenous homicide victims are men. The great majority — again, both Indigenous and non-Indigenous — have links to their murderer: a spouse, sibling, friend, or acquaintance. Strangers are a small minority of those perpetrating a homicide.

High homicide rates among Indigenous Canadians are both a tragedy and a stain on Canadian society. They are unlikely to decline, however, unless policymakers face up to several hard facts.

“Racism” is the catch-all explanation for most bad things happening in or to Indigenous communities. Accompanying the Statistics Canada release of the homicide numbers is an article seeking to explain them: “Both the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls and the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada indicated that persistent and deliberate human and Indigenous rights violations and abuses are the root cause behind Canada’s staggering rates of violence against Indigenous people.”

The article makes no mention of low employment as a second “root cause.” Yet in virtually all communities worldwide where employment is low social pathologies abound: depression, domestic family conflicts, alcohol and drug abuse. Associated murders and suicides even have a name: they have been labelled “deaths of despair.” It should come as no surprise, given the high rates of homicide among First Nations living in the Prairie provinces, that employment among First Nations people there is significantly lower than in B.C., Ontario and Quebec.

A 2017 Parliamentary report on Indigenous suicide quoted many witnesses: “For instance, Joachim Bonnetrouge from the Deh Gah Got’ie First Nation noted that about half of his community is currently unemployed and that more opportunities would substantially benefit the community, ‘If you have a family and a father, and they could give him a job, holy man, you’d see that would make a big difference in anybody’s life.’”

No doubt federal and provincial governments could do more to increase on-reserve employment in infrastructure and natural resource projects across northern Canada. Decentralizing government offices to northern regions likely would also help. But in many isolated parts of the Canadian north and west good economic opportunities are, and likely always will be, inherently limited.

For many First Nation families, therefore, out-migration is a perfectly sensible choice. In fact, to reach Canadian-average levels of income and employment it may be the only choice. There are three main reasons people move: to be closer to family already in a city, to get a job, and to get better schooling for their children. In the 2001 census, 45 per cent of those who identified as First Nation lived on-reserve; in the 2021 census, only 30 per cent. That fact needs to be stressed: more than two-thirds of Indigenous Canadians now live off-reserve.

As would be expected, young adults with high school certification are more likely to “go to town” than those without. For First Nations, Métis, and non-Indigenous Canadians alike, the employment rates of those with high school certification are over 20 percentage points higher than of those without. (Métis employment rates in all provinces are similar to national non-Indigenous rates.)

Without major improvement in First Nation education pedagogy and more support among First Nation leaders for formal education, median earnings and employment rates among First Nation families are unlikely to converge on non-Indigenous outcomes. Not surprisingly, among First Nation young adults (ages 20-24) the share with at least high school certification is far below that of equivalent Métis and non-Indigenous cohorts — and is lowest in the Prairies.

The continuing critique of Indian reserve schools in the 19th century is entirely legitimate, but too often in this 21st century First Nation leaders express skepticism of formal education, and that has become a serious obstacle to improving Indigenous education outcomes — without which in the modern economy in which we all live Indigenous earnings and employment almost certainly will not improve.

Canadians need to agree on the hard fact of modern life that education is a prerequisite for economic success. Only then can we truly explain the tragedy of Prairie Indigenous homicides and suicides.

Author of the article:

John Richards is an emeritus professor at Simon Fraser University. His longer study on this subject was recently published by the Johnson-Shoyama Graduate Public Policy Program at University of Regina/University of Saskatchewan.