Mr. Speaker, over the last couple of days I had the opportunity to look back into our education system and how culture has played a very important role in our lives and how we’ve tried to move culture into the education system to teach our children about our culture.
I had a very eye opening discussion this morning with my wife. My little boy is six years old. We wanted to have him wear a fur hat, but his grandmother said not until he’s past six years old can he wear a fur hat. That’s our way of life as aboriginal people. That’s what we teach our children.
I told my wife, “I wonder how much people know about this in our community — how much they know about our culture, about little boys.” He got a name from his grandmother. That name is something he grows up with and that’s who he becomes. How many people in our own culture know that or continue practising that?
We looked again at certain things. I said, “It’s fall time. Fall time is the time to pick berries. How do we involve our elders in our communities to pick berries?” It’s a very sacred meaning time, to pick berries and make jam instead of going to the Northern and buying jam. We actually have spiritual and cultural values to pick berries, make jam and give it to the elders. There’s medicine in there. But we don’t.
How much value do we put into our education in terms of culture? How many millions do we put into our culture? We’ve really got to ask these questions of our own people in our own communities: how valued is our culture, our way of life? Right now we’re thinking that we depend on government to do this and that for us.
We’re Dene people, aboriginal people, Inuit people. We’ve got to stand up; I think we’ve got to make a stand for education. That’s the hardest thing to do in our life: make something good for ourselves. We did it in our past, so there’s no difference for us to do it today.
At the appropriate time, Mr. Speaker, I’ll have questions for Hon. Jackson Lafferty, Minister of Education and Culture.
Thank you, Mr. Yakeleya. Item 5, recognition of visitors in the gallery. The honourable Member for Nunakput, Mr. Jacobson.
