The book’s first volume was published in 2004 as the result of a 2002 York University-led national conference on the accounting of the state and quality of 10 related areas of health policy and activity.

“There is little doubt that it really stimulated discussions about role of public policy and how it affects people’s living and working conditions,” said Raphael of the first and second editions.

Raphael, professor of Health Policy and Management and Graduate Program director, Health Policy and Equity, says the third edition presents new scholarship on the ideological and paradigmatic barriers to addressing the social determinants of health by those in the health field and makers of public policy. It also documents attempts being made to overcome these barriers.

In addition to updating the material presented in the second edition, there is greater focus on:

• the political pathways and mechanisms that explain how the social determinants of health come to be distributed amongst the population;
• early childhood development in Canada in relation to other developed nations;
• Indigenous health and its determinants;
• public policy and the social safety net; and
• the growing network of civil society organizations addressing the inequitable distribution of the social determinants of health.

These works represent a unique undertaking in the social determinants of health area as they bring together scholarship by those working in early childhood education and care, education and literacy, employment and working conditions, food security, gender, health services, housing, income and its distribution, social exclusion, the social safety net, and unemployment and job insecurity with those whose work specifically focuses on the health effects of these areas, said Raphael.

The social determinants of health concept was first taken up by pioneering public health units across Canada who helped shift the discussion of health away from biomedical and behavioural risks toward emphasizing living conditions as the primary determinants of individual and population health. United Ways of Canada, social planning councils, and numerous other non–health care agencies striving to improve the quality of life of Canadians drew upon the social determinants of health concept in their activities. They have now been joined by influential health care focused organizations such as the Canadian Medical Association and Canadian Nurses Association. Even the Canadian Senate and the Health Council of Canada have reported on their importance.

The aim of Social Determinants of Health: Canadian Perspectives is to promote more accurate public understandings and public policy making in support of health.

For more on the book, visit www.cspi.org/subjects/health-studies/books/social-determinants-of-health-3rd-edition.

The Right Honourable Paul Martin served as prime minister from 2003 to 2006. He was the Member of Parliament for LaSalle-Émard from 1988 to 2008 and was Canada’s minister of finance from 1993 to 2002.

While Mr. Martin was PM, the Government of Canada partnered with the provinces, territories and Indigenous leaders to sign the Kelowna Accord, to promote equality between Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal Canadians in a number of areas, including education.

“Mr. Martin is one of Canada’s leading advocates of indigenous education which represents a significant focus and priority for Brandon University,” says Dr. Gervan Fearon, BU’s President and Vice-Chancellor.

Mr. Martin promotes primary and secondary education for indigenous students through the Martin Aboriginal Education Initiative, which he founded along with and the Capital for Aboriginal Prosperity and Entrepreneurship (CAPE) Fund, an investment fund developing business expertise and mentoring for Aboriginal business. Since leaving office, Mr. Martin has also advised the African Development Bank and works closely with the Advisory Council of the Coalition for Dialogue on Africa, sponsored by the African Union, the UN Economic Commission for Africa and the African Development Bank.  He was a founding co-chair of the Congo Basin Forest Fund, a $200-million British-Norwegian-Canadian poverty alleviation and sustainable development fund for the Congo Basin Rainforest.

Mr. Martin will be conferred with an honorary Doctor of Laws (honoris causa) at the morning convocation ceremony at Brandon University on May 27.

From a policy perspective, no former Canadian prime minister in living memory has done more after leaving office than Paul Martin.

In particular, his work on behalf of indigenous Canadians has been stellar, an echo of his time in office. It was back in 2005, after 18 months of consultations with indigenous leaders, that Mr. Martin spearheaded the Kelowna Accord, an investment of historic proportions for indigenous Canadians.

It was a $5.1-billion, five-year deal calculated to bridge the gap between the indigenous people of the country and the rest of Canada’s population. However, the Conservatives abandoned the Accord in their maiden budget in 2006 – one of their very first acts of governance.

After losing the 2006 election to the Conservatives, Mr. Martin was disappointed but not undaunted when it came to his dedication to the indigenous file. That’s when he created the Martin Aboriginal Educational Initiative (MAEI), a charitable initiative which aims to support education for indigenous students across Canada and to empower them to pursue post-secondary studies.

One of the many components of MAEI was to initiate two elementary model school projects in partnership with the Chippewas of Kettle and Stony Point First Nation and with Walpole Island First Nation, both in Southwestern Ontario. The five-year projects were based on the very same curriculum and teaching strategies that began in Ontario’s “at-risk” elementary schools and which were so successful for Ontario.

In under five years the number of students who could read by the end of Grade 3 grew from 13 percent to a staggering 80 percent – better than the average for non-indigenous students. The percentage of students identified for speech and language services decreased from 45 percent to 19 percent in Senior Kindergarten to Grade 3.

The intent of the model projects was to accelerate improvement in literacy so that the gains would serve “as a catalyst for action by the wider Aboriginal leadership, the corporate community and by governments,” with the hope this could be amplified in other indigenous schools.

In this case, at least one government was listening. The model projects did not go unnoticed by our current Prime Minister, Justin Trudeau. The federal government just committed annual funding in the recent budget of $6 million for the next five years to roll it out to as many indigenous schools as possible.

It is a great victory for Mr. Martin and of course, for First Nations peoples.

For Mr. Martin, his own personal odyssey to make a difference in the lives of indigenous people began one summer when he was a young man in university. He found summer work as a deckhand on a tug-barge in the Northwest Territories, travelling the whole length of the Mackenzie River carrying cargo between Great Slave Lake and the Beaufort Sea.

The new friends he would work with were all either First Nations, Métis, or Inuit.

“But when we talked about the future, I found there was a deep difference between what they expected from life and what I expected,” Martin reflected in a 2012 speech.

“…many of the young Aboriginal men I worked with, saw little reason for excitement and even less for hope. They had grown up watching parents suffer, friends and families suffer, whole communities suffer in the shadow of discrimination, neglect and need.”

Now, many decades later and with the wisdom and leadership he has both gained and provided, Mr. Martin surely must feel that the tide is about to turn in favour of indigenous people. His own journey from deckhand on a tug boat, to prime minister of Canada, and now philanthropic, policy-driven leader, has played no small role in these events.

A recent national symposium hosted by the Native Women’s Association of Canada (NWAC), the Canadian Feminist Alliance for International Action (FAFIA), and the Canadian Journal of Women and the Law (CJWL) was held in Ottawa to bring together international human rights experts.

These experts came from diverse fields, including the United Nations (UN) and the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR). Caroline Bettinger-Lopez, advisor to the White House on violence against women was in attendance, as were indigenous women leaders, family members, and grassroots feminist activists from across Canada.

Presentations and dialogues culminated in the creation of 22 recommendations regarding the design and implementation of the national inquiry into murdered and missing Indigenous women. Each recommendation must be implemented to ensure a successful outcome from this national investigation.

According to Dawn Lavell-Harvard, President of the Native Women’s Association of Canada, “The Symposium identified the crux of this issue – that equality will never be achieved until gendered, racialized and sexualized violence against Indigenous women and girls as perpetrated by both indigenous and non-Indigenous men, and by representatives of the state, is stopped. That requires action by all levels of government in Canada.”

An overview of the recommendations begins with the fundamental need to establish a clear and distinct focus on the gendered and racialized violence experienced by indigenous women and girls. Rooted in colonization and perpetuated through ingrained patriarchal systems and institutions, the violence indigenous women and girls experience is both distinctive and unrelenting.

The lives of murdered and disappeared indigenous men and boys are equally important and deserves investigation. However, the murdered and missing Indigenous women and girls inquiry is not the proper forum. Two separate and distinct national inquiries need to be held in order to adequately address the unique circumstances leading to the disappearances and murders of indigenous women and men.

The national inquiry into murdered and missing indigenous women and girls needs to acknowledge and address the harm inflicted on family and community members. Safe, supportive spaces should be made available where family and community members can tell their stories and seek redress, healing, ceremony, memorialization, and compensation. Services available to participants should include counselling, financial support, and legal assistance as required.

The national scope of the investigation should include federal, provincial, territorial and indigenous jurisdictions. This ensures the inquiry can scrutinize conduct and policies at every level of government and provide corrective actions as necessary.

Failures within policing and the justice system to protect indigenous women and girls from perpetrators as well as state violence must be thoroughly investigated. This includes direct violence committed by police or other justice system officials as well as state representatives in positions of authority. All perpetrators must be held accountable for their actions.

Since colonization sexualized stereotyping, sexual exploitation and trafficking have had lasting impacts on the lives of indigenous women and girls. These abuses enable violence against indigenous women and girls to continue.

The inquiry needs to examine the social and economic inequalities that leads to poverty, namely disadvantaged social and economic conditions in housing, food security, education, employment, and child welfare. These factors play a significant role in the over-representation of Indigenous women within the prison system as well.

Lastly, the inquiry needs to establish a human rights framework to ensure previous recommendations from the UN and the IACHR are finally implemented, and that all proposed solutions are measured against human rights standards including women’s rights and the rights of indigenous peoples.

Lavell-Harvard observed, “Gendered, sexualized and racialized violence against indigenous women and girls violates our commitments to equality and causes lasting inter-generational harm to families, communities. These 22 recommendations establish the measures necessary to address this crisis effectively and to begin to reverse the cycle of violence.”

To be truly effective, leadership for the inquiry must come from feminist indigenous women knowledgeable of human rights, with vision, and a firm grasp of the inequalities that continue to support multigenerational violence against Indigenous women.

For over 40 years Indigenous women have advocated for murdered and missing First Nations, Metis, Inuit, and all women and girls who identify as indigenous, irrespective of whether they are status Indian or formally recognized in their Indigenous communities of origin. These women have lived experience.  They are the experts. They need to take the lead throughout the entire process including the inquiry, implementation of recommendations, follow-up evaluations and modifications.

Having women with extensive knowledge and lived experience in charge of the process makes it easier for the inquiry to establish an independent process and voice. Hopefully, that distance prevents unnecessary government interference.

Allies including Indigenous, women’s, human rights, and other civil society organizations will be given the opportunity to contribute their expertise at various hearings to be held across the country.

The recommendations need to have mandatory implementation to ensure they are acted upon in a timely fashion and not just shelved to collect dust. Continuous monitoring to ensure the recommendations remain in place or are amended as required would prevent government policy and institutions from becoming complacent.

The 22 recommendations found in the document, The National Inquiry on Murders and Disappearances of Indigenous Women and Girls: Recommendations from the Symposium on Planning for Change – Towards a National Inquiry and an Effective National Action Plan should be seriously considered by the federal government as a substantive foundation for the national inquiry.

This inquiry provides Canada the opportunity to remedy one more atrocity endured by generations of indigenous peoples. It’s time to listen to those with lived experience and do this right because we only have one chance to make amends.

December 10 is International Human Rights Day.  It’s also the last of the United Nation’s 16 days to end violence against women and girls. Unfortunately, we didn’t manage to end gendered violence or ensure gender equality – yet.

But, hope looms on the horizon. The Liberal government announced this week that the inquiry into Canada’s murdered and missing Indigenous women and girls will begin laying the ground work with a much needed pre-inquiry. This first step is essential to ensuring that the inquiry will accomplish its mandate as well as have the human power and funding to implement and monitor all recommendations.

I have neither the lived experience to comment on the design and implementation of the inquiry, nor the expertise to discuss the scope or the institutions that should be investigated. Instead, I’m relying on, and relaying to you, the expert information that was shared during a recent webinar entitled: Where are we now?  A National inquiry, Federal, Provincial/Territorial, and civil initiatives. This collaborative effort between the Native Women’s Association of Canada (NWAC) and the Feminist Alliance for International Action (FAFIA) was the third in a three part series. The presenters were Dr. Dawn Harvard, President of NWAC and Shelagh Day, Chair, Human Rights Committee, FAFIA.

It was the dedication and hard work of NWAC and FAFIA that brought global attention, outrage and pressure to bear on the issue of Canada’s murdered and missing Indigenous women and girls.

Both the United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) and the Inter-American Commission of Human Rights (IACHR) found that violence against Indigenous is an extreme form of racism, sexism and discrimination. As Dr. Harvard stated, “Indigenous women face two layers of discrimination from birth.  One layer from being part of a racialized group and a second by being women.”

The violence Indigenous women experience violates six basic human rights to:

• life
• be free from torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment
• equal protection
• liberty and security of person
• health
• just and favourable conditions of work

All levels of government have obligations to ensure that these rights are upheld for all citizens.

The Federal Inquiries Act, 1985, was created with a very broad in scope to enable the Federal government to create any inquiry into the government itself or the conduct of any part of public business.  Through this process a problem can be scrutinized and identified remedies implemented.

Canada has had many inquiries over the years including a Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples (1991 -6), the Krever Inquiry into tainted blood (1993-7), and the Walkerton Inquiry into tainted water (2000 – 2).  The former Conservative government argued against an inquiry into murdered and missing Indigenous women and girls because it said that action was required. However, no action was forthcoming from Harper’s government.

The current inquiry will study the systemic causes that have led to the proliferation of murders and disappearances, but will lead to action during as well as after the investigation. Recommendations arising from the inquiry will hopefully be implemented in full and in a timely manner. So, action can be initiated throughout the process and continue on after its conclusion.

The Liberal government has chosen a wise path by including the affected families and communities in pre-inquiry discussions.  This groundwork will outline the mandate and scope of the inquiry and influence implementation of recommendations.

Included in the pre-inquiry work will be establishing:

• terms of reference
• criteria for the appointment of commissioners and staff who will be tasked with asking the hard questions and dealing effectively with all levels of government
• a realistic timeline (2 years?) and budget ($20 million/year?)
• methods of public engagement
• the focus which hopefully will be on human rights violations that will lead to systemic changes

The pre-inquiry lays the foundation so these crucial first steps need to be flawless to ensure it’s done right because there’s only one chance to do this properly.

The Liberals, NDP, Green Party, all the premiers, the UN, IACHR, Canadian Human Rights Council, Aboriginal groups and leaders, and 75 per cent of the Canadian population believe that an inquiry is imperative.

All of these groups need to prepare themselves for the truths that will be unearthed. They also need to be open to changing the roles institutions play in consciously or unconsciously undermining the human rights of Indigenous women and girls. The federal, provincial and territorial, and Indigenous governments will need to cooperate to produce a coordinated action plan that includes a realistic timetable, reasonable budget, and transparent and effective means of monitoring the recommendations.

Most importantly, this inquiry needs to:

• be led by, and centered on, Indigenous women and girls
• provide emotional and financial supports for families to ensure their participation
• use a human rights framework and build on the CEDAW and IACHR reports
• address the root causes of violence with emphasis on social and economic marginalization
• produce a strategic, coordinated plan of action with a local focus

Unlike the Truth and Reconciliation Commission which dealt with historical events and a policy that had ended, the inquiry into murdered and missing women and girls is investigating an ongoing issue.  More women and girls may be murdered or disappear during the inquiry process and implementation of recommendations.

In the meantime, Canadians can start making small changes that will improve the lives of all women and girls. In the case of murdered and missing Indigenous women and girls, as with all forms of violence against women, men need to take ownership of the problem. Not all men are violent towards women and girls, but those who are destroy lives and communities. Men who are not committing the violence need to become allies and speak up when they see or hear abuse. Men need to teach boys and youth that being a man means respecting all women and girls and treating them as equals because women’s rights are human rights.

In mid-November both the University of Winnipeg (UW) in Manitoba Province and Lakehead University (LU) in Ontario announced that students will have to pass a three-credit course in indigenous history or culture to graduate starting in September of 2016.

The required courses include some on indigenous history or culture, contemporary indigenous issues, local indigenous languages, indigenous ways of knowing and research methodologies.

For many indigenous students and faculty the new requirement is seen as a very positive step towards educating all students about the history and current reality of indigenous people in Canada.

“All the aboriginal/indigenous students that I spoke to about this initiative were very thrilled and excited,” said Saide-Phoenix Lavoie (Ojibway), the Co-President of the University of Winnipeg Aboriginal Student Council and one of the activists who has been working towards this goal.

“Most aboriginal students fall victim to stereotypes, covert and overt racism,

misunderstandings and misconceptions of history, and their views are at times undermined by a lot of the student body and community in general,” Lavoie said.

“They fully supported our efforts the entire way, and were very thankful that this was finally happening,” she added.

Lavoie noted that the idea was first formally proposed at UW in 2009 and since then both the Aboriginal Student Council and the University of Winnipeg Student Association (UWSA), along with allies in the faculty, kept the issue alive by meeting with all sectors of the university and local indigenous community.

One of the other supporters of the indigenous studies requirement, Dr. Jacqueline T. Romanow (Metis), Department Chair and Associate Professor in UW’s Department of Indigenous Studies, asserted that the courses are a “positive start” in the process of educating fellow Canadians.

“There is a great deal of injustice in the history of Canada,” Romanow pointed out. “The Truth and Reconciliation Commission has identified cultural genocide to be a fact of Canadian history.”

“How many Canadians know this? Understand what happened and what this really means?” she continued. “If we are ever to have meaningful reconciliation between Indigenous Peoples and the rest of Canada, there must be a full recognition of the truth.”

Learning the truth about indigenous history and reality could become requirements in other universities as well. Lavoie said that she and Kevin Settee, Anishinaabe/Ogimaabinens, who is the Vice-President of UWSA, have received requests from students from all across Canada to advise them on how to push for an indigenous course requirement at their universities.

On November 26, the University of Saskatchewan Students’ Union announced that they are asking for indigenous content be taught in every degree program. University officials have said they are open to the idea.

— This article was written by Rick Kearns and was originally published here.

The CAPE Fund is focused on mid-market opportunities “with a strong degree of Aboriginal involvement and connection to Aboriginal communities throughout Canada.”

Victoria Lennox, co-founder and CEO of Startup Canada, says “Entrepreneurship is about human endeavour; it is about unleashing human potential to advance our society, economy and humanity.”

“Canada was built by entrepreneurs and it is a privilege to have the opportunity to celebrate and showcase these magnificent Canadians who have collectively raised the tide for entrepreneurship and innovation.”

Mr. Martin’s CAPE fund creation meant “demonstrating that entrepreneurship and the role models it creates would make a difference in the lives of this and future generations of aboriginal Canadians,” according to CAPE’s website.

“I cannot tell you how proud I am of the investors’ response, particularly in these difficult times.  We all have a responsibility to make our country a better place.  This is what motivated them. These investors recognized their responsibility, they recognized the need, and more than that they recognized that their leadership might help tip the balance,” said Mr. Martin.

A place on the Masset Village shoreline that resident Joan Ewson took the lead in getting cleaned up several weeks ago is still litter-free. She’s so energized by this and how it happened that she’s about ready to tackle the rest of the shoreline.

In the meantime, her success is being held up as a small but important win by a grassroots initiative called Haida Gwaii Voices.

Haida Gwaii Voices was created more than a year ago by several community members and Community Futures, a community economic development agency, as a way to spark and support community-led change.

“We really want to see the community shaping the future of Haida Gwaii,” says Allison Smith, a lead volunteer with Haida Gwaii Voices as well as the Community Futures business development officer.

Haida Gwaii is a sprinkling of islands off B.C.’s northern coast. It consists of seven small communities, including Masset Village and has a total population of about 5,000.

Through both kitchen-table discussions and some creative community engagement projects involving Facebook, Haida Gwaii Voices has discovered a resonating chord of dreams among the communities. For example, people want more access to local food, a vibrant network of nature trails and healing opportunities for adults.

Haida Gwaii Voices is now grappling with how to bring the communities together to create the changes they want to see.

Joan’s story offers a few clues. Taking the initiative to clean up a piece of the Masset Village shoreline all started with writing down her commitment to do so, she says.

“I had been following Haida Gwaii Voices on Facebook and I was downtown at our Harbour Day Festival where they had a booth with these grey cards for you to write down what you would like to see for Haida Gwaii.

“Well, that garbage can – or the lack of – (on the Masset dock) had driven me crazy for a long time,” Joan says. “There was always piles of garbage down there, so I wrote down that I would like to see it cleaned up and a garbage can down there.”

That was essentially all it took, she adds. “It really spurred me to action. I had written it down, so I felt like I had to do it.”

Joan’s next step was to visit the site of contention, snap photos of the garbage and then set about cleaning up the spot, which is otherwise quite pretty. “It has a bench overlooking the village dock,” Joan says. “And I’ve seen orchids there and you can watch the boats and planes come and go.”

She then visited the Masset Village council offices to show them her before and after pictures of the site and to ask about setting up a garbage can.

Joan also posted her photos and a note about her experiences on the Haida Gwaii Voices Facebook page – who went on to tag the Masset Village council offices and add a request that something be done.

Within a few days, a garbage can had been set up.

The invitation for residents to commit to doing something about the change they would like to see is an important piece of fostering community-led change. That’s been a big “a-ha” for Haida Gwaii Voices, Allison says.

The initiative first recognized this through a project last June which invited residents to write on chalkboard both one wish for Haida Gwaii and what they intended to do about it. People were then invited to post a photo of themselves with their chalkboard message to Facebook.

“We didn’t get as many people doing it for that reason, because you’re publicly putting (your commitment) out there, but it also sometimes got more meaningful actions and more meaningful connections were made from it,” Allison says.

“So now in every project that we do going forward there will always be that commitment piece to making things happen.”

Another surprising “a-ha” for the initiative has been the power of social media on the islands. This is essentially the key way to learn of local news and community events, Allison says, adding the initiative has become intentional about tapping into that and encouraging residents to do so as well.

Looking ahead, the ongoing big question for Allison and others involved in the community building work in Haida Gwaii is knowing what how best to support or facilitate community leadership and action, without taking the lead themselves.

Energizing connections between people is definitely another key part of the work, Allison says.

To learn more about Haida Gwaii Voices, visit their Facebook page here.

This article originally ran on Axiom News here.

In the aftermath of last night’s historic election in Alberta, in which anything seemed possible, a national summit on poverty reduction was buoyed by a sense of change and possibility in Ottawa today.

The National Poverty Reduction Summit, hosted by the Tamarack Institute and Vibrant Communities Canada, is hosting representatives from across Canada in an unparalleled gathering of thought leaders and change makers, in an effort to alight their efforts for poverty reduction.

Paul Born, president and cofounder of Tamarack, told a capacity crowd that at least 50 cities across Canada have active poverty reduction strategies and about 60 others are actively working toward this goal.

“From every province and territory, we’re here to learn from one another,” he says.

Born notes that for the 3.5 million Canadians living in poverty, “this is the beginning…where we agree to act together. We need each other, from coast to coast.”

Stressing that poverty is about an entire society, not just poor people, Born spoke passionately about making a commitment “to the way we live together.”

Chief Kirby Whiteduck, of Pikwakanagan First Nation, spoke after Born and pointed out that the Greater Ottawa Area is on unsur­ren­dered Algo­nquin ter­ri­tory, which means the Algo­nquin peo­ples never gave up, sold, traded, or trans­ferred own­er­ship of their land to Euro­pean colonists. There are cur­rently no treaties that apply to this area.

Chief Whiteduck noted that he was happy to see so many people across the country concerned about poverty and working toward reducing it, considering the troubling statistics for indigenous peoples.

Fully half of status First Nations children in Canada live in poverty, according to the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives. This figure rises to nearly two-thirds in Saskatchewan and Manitoba.

Chief Whiteduck, an author and historian, says indigenous people need more input and control in the way they live their lives. But he is cautiously optimistic. “It is changing. We think there is some hope and we are open to new ideas and partnerships on ways to reduce poverty.”

About 426,000 indigenous children live in Canada. Most reside in Saskatchewan, Manitoba, Alberta, B.C. and Ontario. The indigenous population is the fastest growing group in Canada.

— More stories to come from the poverty reduction summit.

A four-year project spearheaded by former Prime Minister Paul Martin to improve student achievement on two Ontario reserves has yielded impressive results, new data from the final report reveals.

The project ran from 2010 to 2014 at Kettle and Stony Point First Nation and Walpole Island First Nation. The two reserves partnered with the Martin Aboriginal Education Initiative to see if such long-term, focused efforts on reading and writing would be successful in raising student achievement scores as measured by EQAO – the same test that all Ontario students take in Grades 3 and 6.

The two schools involved in the long-term project were Hillside School, operated by Kettle and Stony Point First Nation, and Walpole Island Elementary School, operated by Walpole Island First Nation. Both schools offer Senior Kindergarten to Grade 8. English is the language of instruction and Ojibwa is taught at all grade levels.

The program was called Wiiji Kakendaasodaa, or, in English, Let’s All Learn. When it began, most students did not meet the provincial standards in reading or writing. However, when the program ended, most students met or exceeded provincial standards.

Other Facts from the final report

• Individual schools exceeded provincial achievement levels at times.
• During the program, 26 students completed the EQAO in Grade 3 (2011) and again in Grade 6 (2014) – 69 percent of those students maintained or rose to the provincial standard in reading between those grades, and 73 percent maintained or rose to the provincial standard in writing.
• In reading, girls outperformed boys every year during the program – 71 percent of girls and 62 percent of boys in Grade 3, and 78 percent of girls and 64 percent of boys in Grade 6 met or exceeded the provincial standard in 2013-2014.
• No consistent differences in writing were evident between boys and girls.

The program was developed with assistance from the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, University of Toronto. To work toward success in the program, schools increased teaching time for reading and writing and teachers were engaged in continuous, intensive, professional learning.

All students — 473 in total — who were enrolled in Senior Kindergarten to Grade 6 during the program participated, 233 boys and 240 girls. During the program, the percentage of students identified for speech and language services decreased from 45 percent to 19 percent in Senior Kindergarten to Grade 3.

The report concludes that there is every reason to expect that with effective teaching, “First Nations students can excel as speakers, listeners, readers and writers in two or more languages and enjoy all the associated cultural, social, educational and economic benefits.”