Promotion of Excellence at Schools with FNMI Students, Part 1

This is the first of five articles on Excellence at Schools with First Nation Métis and Inuit (FNMI) Students. In each article at least two major ideas that promote Excellence are featured.

During the late 1970s and early 1980s, we promoted two major trends at our schools. The first trend was a commitment to inject local First Nation content into every aspect of the school program of studies, enrichment activities, and school field trips while we maintained high daily academic standards. In essence we made local student experiences and cyclical cultural and seasonal trends in the area an integral part of our curriculum.As a principal and later first time Superintendent of Education at the Gitksan-Carrier School District, most professional educational and administrative leaders worked with local community authorities and principals at Federal, First Nation and provincial schools to increase the performance levels of our students.

We created new resources for schools with First Nation parents and community activists by tapping into the talents of local elders, cultural and academic leaders in each community. Our school cultural teachers and students became involved with K’san Village artists, artists-at-the-school initiatives, and performance of local dance traditions as well as with the Land Claims Research initiatives in the area. This comprehensive effort at making the curriculum and arts activities relevant to the local and cyclical activities of the communities we served led to elementary school language, cultural and dance programs and the systematic injection of indigenous art forms and local knowledge skills of elders, hunters, food gatherers, artists and specialists at each community. At the Kispiox School, several young artists created the First Gitksan Art Coloring Book in 1979.

The relationship between the school and community it served became a two way vibrant and complex relationship in which each group of stakeholders influenced the others. Some professional staff members were adopted by hereditary chiefs and invited to sit at the potlatch feast table.  Our interests in the salmon cycle contributed to the creation of an on reserve hatchery and other local craft and art activities. Local specialists created booklets on local histories of each community and several linguists cooperated with elders and Gitksan speakers to have the first comprehensive Gitksan Language and Cultural Programs. These efforts were innovative at the time but the real innovation was linking all these efforts to development of the students’ traditional speaking and writing skills into each of the official provincial academic disciplines. In short, we used the students’ heritage language and culture as a basis for developing English language and core academic skills. The predominant focus was in mastery of the BC curriculum but teachers made great efforts to educate themselves about the Gitksan culture, stories, traditions and legends.

By the end of my superintendence in 1983, all the schools were transferred from Federal to First Nation administrative control and the Department of Indian and Northern Affairs reported that although we made up only 5% of the FNMI population in BC, our District had almost 33% percent of all FNMI high school student graduates in the province. The principals, school staff, home school coordinators were so focused on raising academic and cultural standards in the delivery of the school curriculum that they had an enormous impact on student achievement as well as maintaining a highly motivated school staff. The excitement of being part of a larger district drive to raise academic and cultural standards made parents, school staff, leaders, elders and local school committees feel that they were members of one team with a single goal. During this period some parents, teacher assistants and cultural workers went on to enter a Teacher Training Program sponsored by the District and the University of Victoria. It was a teacher training program that was located at Hazelton during the school year and on campus at U of Victoria during the summer.

The second major strategy for building excellence for FNMI students is ensuring that each school has a set of prioritized goals that are approved by a local education authority and recommended by the principal. The first administrator to do this in the 1970s in a systematic way was a first time principal, Ben Kawaguchi, at Gitsegukla School. He worked with the education authority members to set annual priorities. He ensured that resources were allocated to major the priorities set for the First Nation school. The problem with all our school systems is that we tend to tackle as many problems or trends as arise during the school year rather than remain focused on key prioritized issues.

A more sophisticated variation of focusing people and resources to major annual priorities was created by Kawaguchi soon after he left Gitsegukla, BC for the Peigan First Nation. As Director of Education in the early 1980s, Kawaguchi persuaded the Peigan Board of Education to focus on a single major priority each year rather than many or a handful of priorities. The strategy of a single major priority each year soon made the Peigan First Nation schools, students and high school graduates the leading First Nation School in Alberta and Canada. Provincial, Federal and First Nation educators came to Brocket to visit the schools and chat with Board, administrators and students to understand the reason for the excellent student performance results. All went home knowing that they had to have an overriding priority for student and staff but few have been able to implement such discipline at their jurisdictions. As Kawaguchi pointed out to his Board members, they can focus on 100 priorities each year and get 1% improvement on a hundred things or they can focus on one priority and try to get 100% improvement. By focusing staff and community effort on selecting several (100) ideas of improvement within a priority plan (for example, “This year our priority is to improve our social studies program with a 100 different ways.”) the school and community were able to communicate their efforts and spread great ideas and practices amongst the entire school population.  “With a clear focus on what part of the curriculum we wanted to improve we also made sure that teachers and staff who worked outside of the curriculum priority, to also align their assignments and professional development to the strategic priority to build consistent themes that would link student learning in unique and innovative ways” according to Kawaguchi.

During his Director of Education stewardship, he ensured that the Peigan Board members set one major new academic priority each school year. He ensured that the core subjects and technological innovations were updated in a cyclical manner so that reforms were revisited and refreshed while maintaining a major priority each year. This strategy of focusing on an overriding priority is easier to explain than actually do since at FNMI schools there are so many pressing social, economic and political issues that it is difficult for education authorities, administrators and school staff to have the discipline to have a single overriding academic excellence priority during the school year. However, a focus on academic priority is built on teaching staff strength and can serve to unite staff and school leadership with clear outcomes that the community can see and attribute to school staff and leadership effort.

Karzai, Criminal Syndicates and Terrorists

The Western Powers with over 150,000 military forces in or adjacent to Afghanistan and their network of support and supply bases outside the country need to re-conceptualize the Mission to crush Al-Qaeda and the Taliban. Experts admit that a military strategy will only accomplish so much. Essentially, the Afghans must take control in fighting the violence, terrorist raids into their villages and in bringing greater levels of peace, security and prosperity. If national leaders of Afghanistan, Yemen, Pakistan, Iraq and other dysfunctional states are seen as heads of a criminal national syndicate with alliances to local syndicates rather than as simply crusaders against Terrorism, then it will be easier to pull out foreign troops, decrease the spending of foreign treasure and create conditions for Afghans and anti-terrorist Muslim movements to take over the fight to bring peace and local security. The military role should be minimized, except for an increase in drone strikes across Afghanistan, Pakistan and Yemen.

Here are a few suggestions for speeding up the pullout from Afghan and other states combating terrorist organizations:

First, we should invite, fund and recruit special units of adventurous Muslim retired officers and young or unemployed Muslim soldiers that disagree with the Taliban and Al-Qaeda Ideology of Murder and Mayhem to fight in a pan-Muslim Army equivalent to the old colonial Foreign Legion or African Commando units. Then, embed these units with the elite of the Afghan national army or local police in key valleys along the frontlines bordering Pakistan. Build up the Afghan Army and Police by having a predominance of Arabic and Afghan speaking instructors rather than foreign non-speakers. Downgrade Euro and US military operations, except for the drone strikes, as of July 2011 and dramatically increase the drone attacks in Afghanistan and Pakistan. The hundreds of billions of dollars to fight the current wars are unsustainable for much longer. More importantly, it is inefficient and extremely wasteful.

Secondly, another anti-terrorist strategy is the active sponsoring of TV, radio and print media operations that promote any and all less extreme Islamic values 24/7 for all men, women and children. There should be accredited cyber K-12 schools, agricultural and trade schools with Afghan trained teachers and religious leaders available for both boys and girls. The proposal includes the giving of every Afghan, among its various minority groups in all areas of the country, media and radio that ensures access to the media 24/7. By a mass media communications strategy, the State can have a presence in all parts of the country and can keep the faces of government leaders and its major terrorists, rapists, and wanted criminals posted in every media, government outlet and post office. In essence, it needs to do what the FBI has done to fight the various criminals and their syndicates across the US since the late 1920s. The media needs to televise the local major jurga forums as well as creative business, sports, religious and arts peoples from all its ethnic communities. This 24/7 strategy should apply to media as well as to all the police and military compounds in the country with a fund at each of these elite military and national police  institutions that can pay for civil informants as to local terrorists. As part of its urban anti-terror strategies, the government should have cameras at and near all major cities and towns as well as compounds and military barracks so that terrorists do not surprise trainees, military or police officials.

Also, the Afghans needs to create distinct Afghan uniforms for both the more elite members of the military and its national police forces as was done with Italy’s Carabenieri and Canada’s RCMP and its distinct red uniforms. These forces need special issue equipment and training so as to trace all its equipment if stolen or traded. Rotate the elite military and police officers as well as their families to lower chances of graft and criminal activities and increase their loyalty to the State. Provide better housing and educational opportunities for all these elite troops and their families. Pay and promotions need to be linked to the accomplishment of local and national performance goals while on duty. Another option is to have liaisons with the local beggar communities in each major town and city as was done in pre-industrial Europe.

Karzai Family Criminal Syndicate has the protection of all the Western powers in Afghanistan. This Family syndicate may be exposed for short periods of time, a case in point is the activities of his brother the banker, but the Karzai criminal syndicate will remain in power since it is the key national group binding the national criminal network for most of the drug and land-based lords in Afghanistan’s twenty-eight provinces. As Peter Galbraith pointed out, while investigating corruption and Karzai government election practices, all but one of Karzai’s Ministers and their Departments are actively involved in corrupt practices. As the New York Times and other media outlets have documented, each week officials are leaving the country with suitcases of foreign funds or using the development money and contracts to build palatial residences or the palaces and fortresses of local warlords. Especially telling is the Karzai control of a province adjacent to Iran since that country is a key transit route in the drug and money trade. Karzai is frank that he receives sacks, bags, suitcases of funds from the Iranians as well as other foreign States. The Karzai syndicate and most of the drug lords will remain in power until such time as another crime syndicate leader is found in Afghanistan.

If any Euro or other countries were serious about cleaning up corruption in Afghanistan or Yemen or even Pakistan, they would indict any Afghan or other officials that have dual citizenship, much as the US did to Karzai’s brother, who is a US citizen and a syndicate front banker that controlled the money laundering operations for the Karzai family, government and its drug lord allies. As with Iraq, those that oppose the government criminal syndicates in power are no different. However, those with less power should be monitored and encouraged to call for an end to corruption so that those in power can be kept on their toes.

The US, Euro States and even Russia are all agreed that they need to stay the course in Afghanistan since it is a resource rich country and also a transit country for potential oil and gas pipelines to Pakistan and energy hungry India. Al-Qaeda and the Taliban need to be crushed or marginalized enough for the pipeline and mining activities to take place in and through Afghanistan.

Perhaps, if we re-conceptualize the current anti-terror strategy as one of dealing with criminal syndicates, we could make greater impact in neutralizing the threats in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Yemen. We need to give these criminal bosses of networks deals and incentive they can’t refuse while rooting out the terrorists in their territories, using the media to expose both their terrorist enemies and when the time comes even them.

Wiki Leaks, Accountability & Age of Cyber Wars

American government officials have a right to be embarrassed and upset about the latest set of Wiki revelations. However, they need to share the blame for creating the conditions that a Private soldier in Iraq had access to such vast amounts of confidential data and the means to copy it with relative ease. Where were the supervisors and the checks and balances? In the past when other individuals and governments had access to secrets they would sell them without notifying other governments. How times have changed in the Age of Accountability.

The recent leaks will force all governments to lift up their socks and ensure greater checks and balances and more accountability on everyone’s part. The leaks have given us a peak into what diplomats do during their workday to protect the interests of their countries. The leaks reveal that often duplicitous nature of diplomacy.  Our leaders and officials still subject to deep prejudices and the urge to double-speak. It is this tendency to be less than truthful to friends and adversaries that keeps getting governments and nations into battles or international incidents.

 The assault on Julien Assange and his group disguises the fact that the Americans dropped the ball. The final decision as to what is made public still rests with the traditional major newspapers and media groups in the West. The New York Times and The Guardian are world class outlets with extremely competent reporters. At any rate, the cyber hackers among the Wiki Groups and governments Cyber experts have begun a war that will get nastier and nastier. The one result is that governments will learn how to deal with sabotaging not only the Freedom of Speech and Transparency Groups but other governments that they do not like. Expect more cyber wars and unexplained computer and internet failures in the near future. The revelations are still rather petty and insignificant to officials of most governments but the embarrassments at higher levels of the military and diplomatic corps are not as easy to hide.

Assange is in the sights of not only the Swedes and Americans but other governments. If he manages to escape the sexual allegations there will be other trials, woes or accidents ready to occupy him. If some of those exposed in the Wiki Leaks are killed or imprisoned there may be even further law suits and troubles awaiting Assange.  The one comfort and confirmation of dedication on the part of America’s diplomatic corps is that these officials actually have the stomach to watch and monitor our CBC dramas!! What fortitude! The best way to punish Assange would be to make him watch CBC 24/7 during his upcoming trials.

Afghanistan and FNMI Initiatives

Harper has announced that Canada has extended its commitment to keep troops in Afghanistan until 2014. By the end of its expeditionary mission to that country Canada will have spent over 30 billion dollars, lost just less than 150 lives and accomplished nothing of any lasting substance. Committing our troops to a mission in Afghanistan will have as little long term impact on the local or global situation as Canada’s military participation during the Boer War. Today, we continue to squander billions of dollars, Canadian military lives, and have made a mockery of the role of Parliament in approving the extension of foreign expeditions. Sadly, we have passed up an opportunity to close the growing gap between mainstream Canadians and our indigenous peoples by our commitment to remain in Afghanistan in order to fight an ill-conceived war by ineffective means.

Could the 30 billion dollars we shall spend in Afghanistan by 2014 have been better allocated to deal with First Nation, Métis and Inuit training, infrastructure and housing needs at home? The Kelowna Accord with FNMI leaders would have allocated about 5 billion to deal with our internal need to upgrade the living standards of Canada’s indigenous population. The five-year, $5-billion plan set targets to improve education, housing, economic development, health and water services, and detailed how money would be spent along the way. When the accord fell to the wayside, so did any forward momentum in addressing those needs. Today more than 100 aboriginal communities do not have access to clean drinking water. There are 27,000 aboriginal youth living away from their parents due to poverty, aboriginal incarceration rates are rising and the gap between aboriginal and non-aboriginal Canadians continues to widen as the demand for adequate housing and educational facilities increases. In short, we have intentionally squandered an opportunity to address our own nation building needs by signing up for an ill conceived Afghanistan adventure. After nine years of involvement we have absolutely nothing to show as an achievement.

The billions squandered in Afghanistan was not just for maintaining our troops but was also spent to enrich Karzai family members, corrupt Ministers and the key warlords in most of the 28 districts in the country. We failed to train any significant number of locals in carpentry, masonry, public utilities, medical services, local municipal services, waste and water management, or educational training work. We failed to assist Afghans to transform their educational and training institutions at every level. Today, over 70% of the population is either unemployed, illiterate or has received no training in any career or profession. Women and children are still raped and abused. Our greatest accomplishment has been to enrich the warlords, Karzai family members and their allies, and all those involved in the opium trade. Business in the illicit drug trade is at an all time high thanks to the protection of foreign troops.

How could the billions have been better spent? If Canada had heeded Marshall Mc Luhan’s insights on the impact of mass media and technology on the thinking of populations, we would have trained a few thousand Afghanis among each of the country’s minority groups to operate radio, television, cyber chat lines, newspapers and surveillance cameras 24/7 in Afghanistan. These local media people would be trained, at a cost of less than one billion dollars, to use the latest technology to communicate to their local peer groups in culturally savvy ways. Rather than spend millions each week to keep our Leopard tanks on the road to nowhere, we could give everyone radios, TVs and training tools at discount prices. If we had spent less than a billion dollars on a career and technology development strategy, Afghans would be hearing their own trained people, on a 24/7 basis, talk about their cultural, religious and training needs. A mass media strategy would have provided a lasting opportunity to transform a society and train people to help themselves in all walks of life. A mass media strategy that provided both electronic information and training opportunities across Afghanistan would have done more to genuinely win the hearts and minds of both men and women across each district of the country than our current policies of cat and mouse troop placements. If we had adopted a vigorous mass communications strategy, media messages would have gone out in the local dialects to homes and public institutions. Afghan media personalities could have made more transparent and transformative the workings of government services, educational and other institutions in the society. Also, a 24/7 media strategy could have exposed the gross corruption and criminality among government officials and the various Taliban factions. Less Afghan men living in far off communities would be clueless as to the struggle that is currently being waged in Afghanistan. In a recent survey, the overwhelming numbers of Afghans claim not to know why foreign troops are in the country.

The Afghan people could be reminded that the best way to get the foreigners out is for them to get training in a multitude of trades, services and professions. Instead, most of the billions upon billions spent by foreign governments maintain over 150,000 foreign troops, private security forces and non-governmental support staffs chasing a few thousand local Taliban. Whereas it costs us over a million dollars to kill or capture one Taliban, it cost them less than one thousand dollars to equip and maintain fighters in the field or to ensure that a suicide bomber carries out his work on a mere bicycle. Harper has informed us that our new military mission is no longer one of combat but one of training the country’s police and government officials. What makes us think we will do a better job at training police and a new Afghan army, when most of the conscripts are handpicked loyalists of the Karzai family or this or that warlord?

We are wasting a billion dollars per year on our Afghanistan expedition in order to achieve nothing of any lasting substance. Our unique reputation as UN Peacekeepers and our influence in our own backyard has eroded. Canada’s resources could have been used at home to close the worsening gap between Canadians and our indigenous peoples. Our military engineers could have built roads and airports in our North to get our goods and services to China, Asia and Russia over our Arctic space by new, cheaper and quicker routes. We could have built the infrastructure and thousands of new homes across our over seven hundred FNMI communities. We could have promoted innovations in Green Technology or created the world’s biggest domestic fish hatchery in the Hudson’s Bay. We could have trained our own FNMI populations to defend our home and native land and even have funds left over to help Haiti in our own Hemisphere. Mc Luhan and Pearson must be turning over in their graves!

UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples and the Magna Carta

The rule of universal law, informed consent and rights of the governed have their roots in the Magna Carta of 1215. The UN Declaration on Indigenous Peoples is a Magna Carta for all indigenous peoples. However, unlike the original Magna Carta this Declaration must go beyond fine principles and deal with concrete minimum rights and responsibilities. Like the original Magna Carta of 1215, this UN Declaration needs to be reworked and reframed to suit the rights of an evolving indigenous population. The Current UN Declaration has less teeth and substance than its original, the Magna Carta of 1215. It is a baby that must be nurtured by indigenous leaders through renewed and current treaties, agreements and MOUs with the descendants of a State.

The four English-speaking countries, whose whole legal system grew out of the agreement negotiated by King John of England and the English Lords, delayed, for almost 20 years, before reluctantly approving the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. This November 2010 UN Declaration impacts on the rights of almost 400 million aboriginal peoples who have or still seek formal agreements, treaties or are still brutally subject to the arbitrary dictates of a non-indigenous State.  

Like King John in 1215, Canada, USA, New Zealand and Australia want their 21^st Century aboriginal/indigenous peoples to continue to submit to the rights and prerogatives of their State or Ruler over the inherent rights of the indigenous populations that they rule. Like King John, the Executives of these States want to dominate and control as much as possible the right to self-governance and self-determination. King John reluctantly signed the Charter that gave the Nobles and peoples that had been conquered almost 200 hundred years earlier, individual rights and specific processes that outlined the rights and obligations on the part of the Ruler and the Ruled. The Magna Carta created an incentive for the Ruler and the Ruled to share power, rights in decision-making and consent by the governed. The Magna Carta and its successors provided for peoples interests to receive a voice and consideration. As with today’s States, King John and his heirs delayed in carrying out the full spirit and intent of those original power sharing agreements in various aspects of daily life. Some of what was signed in 1215 was not applied until it was revised and clarified in 1297 and subsequently when commoners earned the right to gather in Parliament. At any rate, the Magna Carta of 1215 gradually redressed the imbalances between the Ruler and the Ruled and set limits to the prerogatives of the Ruler until successive elected Parliaments and Constitutional arrangements brought about the current practices at all four counties- Canada, USA, New Zealand and Australia.

The descendants and subject peoples who benefited from the Magna Carta are reluctant to share with their own indigenous peoples the powers and rights they won from their Rulers. Even today in Canada, the State could arbitrarily relocate whole communities or deprive them of the same services and benefits of their non-aboriginal counterparts. As part of the official record, Canada's UN Ambassador wanted it noted that Canada was not ceding any rights to rule and dominate its own aboriginal populations. He wanted it noted that the UN Declaration on Indigenous Peoples would not change any current practices toward the First Nation, Métis, and Inuit peoples on how to deal with such outstanding issues as

·         Inherent or negotiated rights to lands, territories and access to resources;

·         free, prior and informed consent when used as a veto;

·         self-government without recognition of the importance of negotiations;

·         intellectual property;

·         military issues related to indigenous rights; and,

·         The need to achieve an appropriate balance between the rights and obligations of Indigenous peoples, member States and third parties.

While Canada's concerns regarding the text of the Declaration remain unchanged, Canada has finally endorsed the Declaration. As the federal government pointed out, “Although the declaration does not reflect customary international law nor change Canadian laws, in endorsing the Declaration, Canada reaffirms its commitment to build on a positive and productive relationship with First Nations, Inuit, and Métis peoples to improve the well-being of Aboriginal Canadians, based on our shared history, respect, and a desire to move forward together”.

As with the Nobles of Old England, Indigenous leaders need to get down to specifics and need to find ways to get the active participation of its indigenous peoples. All those indigenous leaders who went to Geneva and later New York to make their case for creation of this UN Declaration know that the real work and struggle for equal and shared rights needs to continue. This is a grand opportunity for the Federal Government to negotiate outstanding treaties, negotiate a more realistic sharing of resources above or below ground, sweet water and sea beds.

Canada exists today due to the past and current contributions of its indigenous peoples. Yet treaties or agreements are still delayed even to this day. The Dakota of Manitoba fought for the British Crown against American incursions in the War of 1812 and like the Blackfoot to the west of them remained loyal. Still these indigenous peoples have yet to be acknowledged for their allegiance, sacrifices in war or their contributions to the formation of Canada. Canada needs to do more than just sign the UN Declaration. It must get into the spirit and intent of the UN Declaration. It must stop offering apologies for its forced relocations of people, its seizure of children from parents, its efforts to scatter indigenous peoples by adoption or underfunding of aboriginal communities and institutions. Canada needs to renew its commitment to negotiate modern treaties and agreements that meet the international standards of informed consent, treaties of mutual benefits to all peoples, and demonstrate an economic sharing of lands and resources that account for the possibilities of multiple uses for the same piece of aboriginal lands.

We are well beyond fine words, well crafted apologies or more declarations. Concrete actions are desperately needed. We must work with indigenous peoples to have their voices and rights entrenched in practical everyday practices as was done to the subject peoples of English monarchs.

Let the dialogue between indigenous peoples and the State rulers begin. The UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples needs teeth and substance. The Age of Apologies and Declarations need to give way to concrete and negotiated mutual rights, mutual freedoms and mutual benefits. As will all peoples, Indigenous Peoples have as much inherent human rights to govern themselves and enter into agreements by consent as did the nobles and commoners involved with the original Magna Carta.

Rare Earth, Environmentalists and Innovations

How times have changed in the world of rare earth ores production and Western know how! Currently, for rare earth ores needed to propel the Green Revolution, most roads lead to China’s almost one hundred rare earth mines.

Rare Earth Elements (REE) are important in the production of many everyday technological products as well as a host of green technologies including hybrid cars, solar panels, and windmills. High-technology industries rely heavily on the availability of these 17 elements - such as scandium, yttrium, and cerium - but combination of low cost high tech products and rapid technological advances has led to an explosion of demand over the past two decades. China currently produces some 97 percent of the worldwide supply of rare earths. Deng Xiaoping, supreme leader at the time that China decided to adopt capitalist ways, once observed that the Mideast had oil, but China had rare earth elements. As the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries has done with oil, China is now starting to flex its muscle.

While Harper and other western leaders entertained us by lecturing the Chinese, scoffing at their developing economy as mere catch up manufacturing efforts or scolding them for being among the world’s major polluters, they were quietly transforming their society, absorbing all the manufacturing and processing technologies which the West wanted to outsource and quietly implementing their plans to be leaders in the production of rare earth and application of the Green Revolution Technologies.

It is just too easy for Canadians and western governments, environmentalists and natural resources businesses to blame China for the current crisis of unbalances in economic trade exchanges. Some pundits blame Chinese duplicity for the theft of commercial patents and processes and its unfair monetary practices. Little is said as to how our governments, businesses and researchers aided and abetted the mass transfer of innovations and jobs to China, India and South Korea. We have paid too little attention to the export of jobs and technologies and spent too much time at a fruitless tug-of-war among resource/mining companies, environmentalists, researchers in the resource Labs vs. University research centers. During the interminable tug-of-war among western governments, businesses and environmental advocates, Canadians and Albertans have failed to meet the challenges of the tar sands, mining reclamation projects or to deal with the health issues related to major resource extraction and manufacturing.

In the West, we have quibbled, dithered and procrastinated in meeting the challenges of the Green Energy Revolution while China, India, South Korea and Malaysia transformed their societies. In Alberta and elsewhere we have failed to work collaboratively and proactively to tackle the needs to extract natural resources, rare earth ores and yet deal with the pollution and health and environmental issues. We squander billions of dollars on military toys and wasteful adventures but refuse to bring the various players and critics together to meet the challenges of the new green energy revolution. The surprisingly rapid progression from self-sufficiency prior to about 1990 to nearly complete dependence on imports from a single country today involves a number of disturbing factors. These include much lower labor and regulatory costs in China than in the United States or Canada; continued expansion of electronics and other manufacturing in Asia; the favorable number, size, and REE content of Chinese deposits at its 100 or more mines; and the ongoing environmental and regulatory problems at Mountain Pass. China now dominates world REE markets. What are American, Albertan and Canadian stakeholders prepared to do to extract rare earths or develop innovative technologies? Do we have enough incentives for our geologist’s or mining companies to take up the challenge at our park reserves or land base?

Unfortunately, even with the new green reality facing us, we refuse to stop our never ending tug-of-war about acceptable levels of pollution or global warming. In the meantime, China built a city dedicated to the investigation and production of rare earth minerals and its applications. It is expanding its research laboratories and creating post secondary institutions totally dedicated to the extraction, production and application of rare earth elements that are the whole basis of the new technologies, new sources of energy, and an answer to combat global pollution. In the 1990s, the United States was the largest rare-earths-producing country, followed by China, Australia, India, Russia, Malaysia, Brazil, Sweden, Republic of Congo, South Africa, Mozambique, Nigeria, North Korea, Sri Lanka and Thailand. Except for one primary mine at California’s Mohave Desert, most rare earth ores are now produced and exported by China. In 2002, the US shut down its only major mine for an extended period due to concerns about pollution and tailing byproducts that polluted the environment. The Chinese leaders and innovators have an authoritarian one party system with a command economy model. In its pursuit to corner the rare earths market it not opened mines in China but also in Africa. We in Canada and Alberta must bring together the various forces and institutions that are currently in a tug-of-war to deal with the new challenges to our economic existence and our quality of life.

What are these rare earth elements and why have they become so important to the Green Energy Revolution espoused by all governments, new businesses and environmentalists?

In response to the growing challenges in securing and developing rare earth applications, the Americans have created REITA:  Rare Earth Industry and Technology Association. Much of the technical data in this article was gleaned from its website.

The rare-earth elements are defined as a group of chemical elements composed of scandium, yttrium, and the lanthanides. The lanthanides are a group of 15 chemically similar elements with atomic numbers 57 through 71, inclusive. Although not a lanthanide; yttrium, atomic number 39, is included in the rare earths because it often occurs with them in nature, having similar chemical properties. Scandium, atomic number 21, is also included in the group, although it typically occurs in rare- earths ores only in minor amounts because of its smaller atomic and ionic size.

The three major groups of rare-earth elements (scandium, yttrium, and the lanthanides) are extracted from production derived from the rare-earth ores; bastnasite, monazite, xenontime, and ion-adsorption clay. Bastnasite is the world's principal source of rare earth elements and is produced principally in China and the United States. Significant quantities of rare earths are also recovered from the mineral monazite. Xenotime and ion-adsorption clays account for a much smaller part of the total production but are important sources of yttrium and other heavy-group rare earths.

Domestic mine production of bastnasite during the 1970's and 1980's showed an overall increase. Most companies increased their ore and separated product capacities during the period to meet growing demand, especially since rare earths were used in the color televisions and magnets for new technological gadgets such as VCR, compact CD players and new computers. Principal uses for the rare earths are in petroleum fluid cracking catalysts; metallurgical applications; glass polishing compounds; glass additives; permanent magnets; catalytic converter materials; and television, lighting, and X-ray intensifying phosphors. Price increases until the end of the 1980s were tied primarily to adjustments for inflation and increased operating costs since the Japanese and Americans monopolized the marketing and production of the new high tech applications. In 1982, competing groups of scientists around the world found a way to combine iron and boron with a somewhat rare earth called neodymium to make extremely powerful and lightweight magnets. These magnets quickly found a market in computer hard drives, high-quality microphones and speakers, automobile starter motors, and the guidance systems of smart bombs. The Japanese government helped its business wing corner the supply chain for rare earth materials as it ramped up its storage facilities, application research options and variety of new products using these rare materials. In the meantime, Americans overhauled their military weapons and guided missile systems and applications that needed the very same rare earth elements. Gradually in the 1980's, demand shifted away from mixed rare-earths products, such as mischmetal and mixed compounds, to higher value individual high-purity products need for military and new hi-tech consumers.

Until the recent Bush economic recession, there was confidence in the West and Japan that they would dominate the world of new technologies and that rare earths needed to make these technologies would be readily available. However, American businesses in mining, research, production and manufacturing began to export manufacturing and resource processing jobs overseas as environmentalists raised this or that objection to mining and natural resource extraction, the transfer of resource operations and processes were done with a wink and a nod from our own governments. The reasoning was that if these dirty technologies and processes were exported we could simply buy the products and not worry about the objections of environmentalists. Why invest in research and development of new resource applications or processes when we could put funds in banks and increase our Heritage Fund or spend the billions needed to invest in new mining processes on new defense toys or adventures in Afghanistan?

Only in the last five years, have most western governments, university researchers or mining businesses expressed concerns about the growing cost and rising demand in rare earth elements. You see, between 1985 and 2005, American and western mining companies and car manufactures began to export jobs and technologies overseas to China, India and Malaysia. Today, France and Germany have signed major agreements to export airplane technology to China. The movement in the West to export manufacturing jobs and new technologies is due to a misguided belief that by exporting “dirty” manufacturing jobs and technologies, the vast consumer markets of Asia would open up trade opportunities for the West.

A classic case of the Western job and technology transfer is General Motors. In the 1980s, it began to manufacture magnets based on the rare earth elements but then by 1995 it decided to sell its interests in the new technology division to a consortium of three firms, two of which were a pair of Chinese companies — San Huan New Material High-Tech Inc. and China National Nonferrous Metals. Both firms were partly owned by the Chinese government. The heads of these two Chinese companies are the spouses of the first and second daughters of Deng Xiaoping, then the supreme leader of China.

In fact, Chinese leaders recognized the strategic value of its REE resources long before the days of Deng Xiaoping. With skill, patience and investment China quietly transformed the Rare Earth industry into what it is today. It also began to corner the market in its overseas mining and resource initiatives while we squandered billions on military adventures or military toys. China filled the vacuum left in Africa by the West. We can remediate the current situation but it will take a massive commitment on the part of environmentalists, government and businesses. Exporting or slowing down dirty jobs or using various public relations strategies to deceive the public is not enough. We need to harness the ingenuity of innovators, post-secondary institutions environmentalists and policy-makers. The blame games in our tug of wars among stakeholders is crippling our economic abilities to take advance of extraction of our natural resources as well as of what the rare earth applications have to offer in raising our standard of living.

The Clinton administration agreed to the GM sale of the new technology under the condition that the new owners keep the production and technology in the United States. The new Chinese owners began to buy factories in the United States including GA Powders, an Idaho firm that used government money to develop a monopoly on the production powerful methods. Then, the Chinese company shut down American production and moved everything to China. This example is taken from David Cay Johnston’s. 2007. Free Lunch: How the Wealthiest Americans Enrich Themselves at Government Expense (And Stick You With The Bill) (New York: 2007), pg 36-39.

It gets even better - the Americans actually helped the Chinese bolster and modernize the Chinese State Science and Technology Commission, which had the responsibility for acquiring military technology by any means. If you follow developments leading to this week’s G-20 Summit, you can learn how France, Germany, Italy, Britain and the US firms and governments are doing the very same things of exporting technologies and jobs in the hope of opening the vast markets of China, India, Malaysia and South Korea. To date, the major western governments and businesses to benefit from these types of job and technology transfers between East and West have been the ruling class and merchants of medieval Venice and 19^th Century Britain. However, the city state of Venice benefited greatly in its trade relations and exchange of technologies and processes. Now, that was a rare trade imbalance that greatly favored the West.

By exporting its manufacturing and transferring the new technology, one of the keys to Green Technology is literally buried in China. This Chinese dominance has only recently received media attention since Japan began to sound the alarm about China’s monopoly in rare earth production, research and application. While the US has its Silicon Valley, China has a city and many institutions totally dedicated to extraction, research and development of rare earth materials. Japan sounded the alarm only when the Chinese stopped exporting even a gram of rare earth following the recent brouhaha due to the arrest of a Chinese fishing boat captain and the Chinese arrest of Japanese fishermen.

The Americans and Europeans are complaining about the trade imbalances with China but no leaders in industry or government want to own up to how they actively assisted in the outsourcing of jobs, technology and processing techniques. It seems that, over the centuries, out of all the western businessmen and governments have had trade missions to China only the Venetians and some Italian traders got a better deal. The Medieval Italians shared a few western gadgets and in turn brought back the spices and technologies that spawned the armaments trade (Pistoia made pistols and armaments based on powder) and Venice and other Italian cities made spaghetti and new types of “China” products for sale across Europe and beyond etc.

Now that the Japanese have sounded the alarm, three facts are bringing awareness of the looming rare earth shortage to the attention of mainstream media, resource businesses and policy-makers. First, the US, Japan and the West are now totally dependent on China for the export of these rare metals. Second, these minerals are crucial for the development of high technology research, application and new jobs, including both military and so-called green technologies.

The point I want to make is that in Canada and the West, we need to stop the tug-of-war and create collaborative and exploratory initiatives among governments, resource businesses, environmentalists and academia. We can usher in the new technology by promoting innovative policy-making, innovative green technology and rare earth research in our graduate schools, and a more open and proactive mind among our environmentalists. If we do not stop the tug-of-war we shall continue to lament about Alberta’s and Saskatchewan’s mining and tar sand initiatives. Canadians need to grapple with the new Green Technology by pressuring our federal and provincial governments to allocate funds for research at universities and private laboratories and developing or applying the new patents that can help extract gas and oil efficiently while proactively dealing with the environmental and health concerns of trappers, rural and aboriginal communities living near natural resources.

Canada has the second largest landmass and yet our governments, environmentalists, researchers and resource companies have not actively taken up the challenge to develop coordinate strategies and policies for seeking out rare earth elements and developing new applications that promote the Green Technologies Revolution. Canada spent billions of dollars on armaments that could not neutralize a $50 landmine. While the Chinese were transforming their society and cornering the market for the production, research and application of rare minerals, our Prime Minister and governments were insulting, publically scolding both China and India and even mocking their abilities to transform these ancient societies into the economic and innovative powerhouses of the 21st century.

Some Applications of the Rare Earth Elements

The diverse nuclear, metallurgical, chemical, catalytic, electrical, magnetic, and optical properties of the REE have led to an ever increasing variety of applications. These uses range from mundane (lighter flints, glass polishing) to high-tech (phosphors, lasers, magnets, batteries, magnetic refrigeration) to futuristic (high-temperature superconductivity, safe storage and transport of hydrogen for a post-hydrocarbon economy).

Many applications of REE are characterized by high specificity and high unit value. For example, color cathode-ray tubes and liquid-crystal displays used in computer monitors and televisions employ europium as the red phosphor; no substitute is known. Owing to relatively low abundance and high demand, Eu is quite valuable—$250 to $1,700/kg (for Eu₂O₃) over the past decade.

Fiber-optic telecommunication cables provide much greater bandwidth than the copper wires and cables they have largely replaced. Fiber-optic cables can transmit signals over long distances because they incorporate periodically spaced lengths of erbium-doped fiber that function as laser amplifiers. Er is used in these laser repeaters, despite its high cost (~$700/kg), because it alone possesses the required optical properties.

Permanent magnet technology has been revolutionized by alloys containing Nd, Sm, Gd, Dy, or Pr. Small, lightweight, high-strength REE magnets have allowed miniaturization of numerous electrical and electronic components used in appliances, audio and video equipment, computers, automobiles, communications systems, and military gear. Many recent technological innovations already taken for granted (for example, miniaturized multi-gigabyte portable disk drives and DVD drives) would not be possible without REE magnets.

Environmental applications of REE have increased markedly over the past two decades. This trend will undoubtedly continue, given growing concerns about global warming and energy efficiency. Several REE are essential constituents of both petroleum fluid cracking catalysts and automotive pollution-control catalytic converters. Use of REE magnets reduces the weight of automobiles. Widespread adoption of new energy-efficient fluorescent lamps (using Y, La, Ce, Eu, Gd, and Tb) for institutional lighting could potentially achieve reductions in U.S. carbon dioxide emissions equivalent to removing one-third of the automobiles currently on the road. Large-scale application of magnetic-refrigeration technology (described below) also could significantly reduce energy consumption and CO₂ emissions.

In many applications, REE are advantageous because of their relatively low toxicity. For example, the most common types of rechargeable batteries contain either cadmium (Cd) or lead. Rechargeable lanthanum-nickel-hydride (La-Ni-H) batteries are gradually replacing Ni-Cd batteries in computer and communications applications and could eventually replace lead-acid batteries in automobiles. Although more expensive, La-Ni-H batteries offer greater energy density, better charge-discharge characteristics, and fewer environmental problems upon disposal or recycling. As another example, red and red-orange pigments made with La or Ce are superseding traditional commercial pigments containing Cd or other toxic heavy metals.

The next high-technology application of the REE to achieve maturity may be magnetic refrigeration. This new technology could be employed in refrigerators, freezers, and residential, commercial, and automotive air conditioners. Magnetic refrigeration is considerably more efficient than gas-compression refrigeration and does not require refrigerants that are flammable or toxic, deplete the Earth’s ozone layer, or contribute to global warming.

I have emphasized the need for all stakeholders in Alberta and Canada to seek out rare earth elements through a coordinated processing strategy that unites policy-makers, environmentalists and innovators in both private and public research laboratories. Also, our Education Ministries must overhaul our provincial science and CTS offerings at the high school and post-secondary levels in order to create a class of innovators who can contribute to the growing Green Energy Technologies so vital to our environmental and current employment challenges. It is this or international currency wars among nations that will close down the global economy, raise trading and trigger a currency war.

A First Nation Attendance Board for Alberta’s Treaty 6, 7, and 8 Schools

First Nation Grand Chiefs and members of First Nation Education Authorities across Alberta should consider the creation of a Treaty-based Attendance Board as a way to help raise Alberta aboriginal student academic and attendance levels. Under this proposal, the Grand Chiefs may wish to ask the federal and provincial government to fund a Treaty-based First Nation Attendance Board to hear appeals brought by each First Nation school authority.

This proposal for a fully funded First Nation Attendance Board would put teeth and resources to the historic  February 23, 2010, Government of Canada, Government of Alberta and the Assembly of Treaty Chiefs in Memorandum of Understanding for First Nations Education in Alberta. The Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) provides a common vision for strengthening learning and educational success for First Nation learners in Alberta. The MOU provides a framework for collaboration to support a range of education-related issues including parental and community engagement, Treaty and cultural awareness, and on-going work on tuition and education service agreements. If the MOU is to bring significant change in local First Nation classrooms, resources and mechanisms must be considered to deal with endemic issues such as student truancy, bullying and youth in trouble with the law. Without concrete strategies that directly impact on classroom and school practices, the tripartite MOU may do little more than provide for leaders at all three levels of government to meet for photo opportunities and grand press releases.

The Attendance Board proposal is meant to empower local classroom students, teachers and education authorities. The lower attendance levels of First Nation students when compared with their provincial peers is a major contributing factor to lower performance and academic acquisition levels and an abnormally high rate of drop out levels among First Nation school students. So many of our Alberta First Nation students are absent from schools that by the time many reach junior high and high school too many students have missed from 180  to over 360 instructional days or the equivalent of one to two years of schooling.

Absenteeism has a particularly negative impact on the acquisition of mathematics and science skills since these disciplines demand sequential mastery of key concepts. In the humanities, English and Social Studies, the impact is the same since absenteeism contributes to the steady decline in student performance levels from as early as Grade 3 onward to Grade 12. Each First Nation School and the Alberta Regional Offices of Northern and Indian Affairs have access to the deplorably low attendance levels. The annual efforts of isolated First Nation school authorities to raise attendance levels could be helped if each Treaty Area had an Attendance Board to hear appeals related to repeated and systematic truancy, absenteeism due to parent lack of involvement or follow-up. Currently, unlike their provincial counterparts, local First Nation school authorities have no recourse for follow-up beyond their local community school level. The various strategies and incentives have short term impacts but do little to deal with the annual truancy and long-term efforts to combat absenteeism. Further, due to the extended family systems, limited local school resources and lack of inter-school authority jurisdictional coordination, the more severe cases of absenteeism are not being dealt with in other than an ad hoc manner.

Researchers have repeatedly shown that truancy is often the first visible sign of other problems a student may be experiencing.  In most cases, truancy problems are resolved at the local school level where students, parents and school board employees can work together before there is a need to involve an application to a provincial Attendance Board. Where a truancy problem cannot be resolved locally, this proposal argues that a First Nation school authority should have a mechanism for referring the matter to a Treaty-based Attendance Board for assistance and a ruling.

Who Is On The Attendance Board?

The First Nation Attendance Board and panels of specialists drawn from it should be made up of aboriginal elders and professionals recommended by the Grand Chiefs and approved and funded under the current Memorandum of Understanding signed by the three Alberta Grand Chiefs, federal and provincial governments.  First Nation Members (elders and professionals) may come from many walks of life; they may be First Nation parents, lawyers, school board employees, school directors of education or superintendents, members of the general public with experiences in dealing with First Nation youth, retired aboriginal educators, business people and other professionals. Attendance Board panels of two to five members should be convened to hear an attendance case referred by a First Nation school authority and dealing with youth between the ages of 6 to 16 years.

When a student who is under 16 years of age fails to attend school as required by law, the local First Nation school authority may ask for a panel of the First Nation Attendance Board to deal with the matter. This is currently available to public and separate school boards and should be extended to all students attending First Nation administered schools at each Treaty area.

The Authority of This FN Attendance Board could be a Modified Model of the Alberta System

The Treaty-based Attendance Board and the panels drawn from it should have teeth and authority. By this, I mean the same power as the Court of Queen's Bench to summon witnesses and obtain information and records as is provided by its provincial counterpart.  The panel may direct the student to attend school or to take an education program or course funded by the federal government beyond the current nominal roll provision and September 30^th deadline.  

Under the proposal, this impartial Treaty-based First Nation panel may direct the parents to send the student to school. And, the panel may even impose a graduated schedule of fines on parents not exceeding $100/day up to a maximum of $1000. The panel may give any direction to the student, parent, or school that it considers appropriate and enforce that ruling by registering its order in the Court of Queen's Bench. The order then becomes an order of the Court. Failure to obey the order may result in contempt of court charges being brought against the student or others. By creating an impartial and graduated system of consequences it is hoped that parents and students would dramatically decrease repeated incidents of truancy between the ages of 6 and 16. Also, pressure will be put on school officials to demonstrate that they have documented and followed-up on incidents of truancy, individualized student academic rescue plans, bullying and major repeated misbehaviors. By dealing with student and family support issues early, it is hoped that all stakeholders can lower the unacceptably high rates of truancy and student misbehaviors that impact on the delivery of quality learning and teaching opportunities.

What Does A First Nation Attendance Board Panel Do?

A Treaty-based First Nation Panel, acting in a quasi-judicial capacity, will subpoena the truant student, parents, social worker, school administrator, counselor, teachers and anyone whom the panel feels can shed light on why the student is not attending school. The panel may also subpoena documents such as the student’s school record, psychological or medical reports, etc.  On a date set for the hearing, the panel will question the parties and witnesses and study the documents. After obtaining all the details of a particular case, the panel will explore options and strategies, decide what the best course of action will be, draft an Order and order the student, parents and other local authorities to obey this decision.

What Rulings Are Issued by a FN Attendance Board or Panel?

The First Nation Panel may decide that the student will return to the same school as originally attended. Or the panel may direct the student to attend a different school or, with the agreement of the parents, a home education program. The panel may order through a referral under the Child, Youth and Family Enhancement Act that a local Children’s Services branch intervene in some way, or that other agencies become involved:  for example, a First Nation Tribal or provincial AADAC agency. The Attendance Board panel will decide, on the basis of all the facts before it, on an education program or direction which is in the best interests of the student.

If First Nation leaders and education authorities want further details related to this proposal please contact me. The First Nation Attendance Board proposal is a way to assist local First Nation school authorities with a formal back-up appeal and remedial system that is adequately funded. It is a new tool for having First Nation role models in Alberta work collaboratively with federal and provincial governments as provided in the Memorandum of Understanding.

As we approach our fourth decade of Indian Control of Indian Education, there are many First Nation role models, professionals, experienced elders and retired FN teachers and administrators whose experiences can be brought to bear to lower repeated incidents of truancy, drug or alcohol abuse or school bullying. A proactive approach will contribute to raising First Nation high school completion and graduation levels and may even lower incidents of students in trouble with the law.

Proposal for another Alberta School of Public Choice

Currently, I am wrapping up work on approval of Maple Tree Bilingual Charter School for Somali and families of African descent in Calgary Alberta. This is the second charter school that I have designed for a group of Calgary parents. The first school was for a group of Middle Eastern and Asian parents who were distressed about the high dropout rates among immigrant students in Calgary. Almadina Charter School, with its emphasis on English as a Second Language strategy, was among the first Alberta schools to receive a public school charter from the Minister of Education. Since 1995-1996, Alberta has still been the only Canadian province that has approved the creation of up to 15 charter public schools of parental choice. Provincial governments have not created public charter schools since all other provinces fear the backlash from the teacher associations and entrenched bureaucracies and school board associations. Alberta government has led the country in educational reforms first during the 1930s with its Enterprise experiments and now with it charter public school movement. This bold experiment is kept in check by a vigilant provincial Ministry as well as a charter that must be externally assessed and renewed every five years.  

Alberta’s 13 charter public schools receive the same per pupil funding as their public counterparts but are not supported with any direct capital building grants. They must lease a facility and submit to an annual assessment based on about 16 public Accountability Pillars. These assessments are made up of surveys to stakeholders and Provincial Achievement and Diploma Tests for Grades 3, 6,9,12. The charter schools have exerted enormous pressure on the Alberta Teachers’ Association and Public and Private Schools to be more accountable for learner outcomes and value for money invested in public education.  Each of these charter public schools of parental choice need to articulate and deliver results based on their unique educational vision and mission.

In order for Alberta parents to be granted a charter, public meetings must be held and a proposal submitted to a local Public School Board. If the proposal is rejected after 60 days of review, to the Alberta Minister of Education AND Ministry officials have a mere 30 days to accept or reject the proposal. Each proposal should be accepted or rejected based on educational criteria and innovative approaches to enhance learner success for that niche of students.

Maple Tree Bilingual School proposal has several unique aspects.  Instruction in the student’s heritage language occurs at the same instructional block during the day so that a pan-African student may study the international language of choice: Somali, Sudanese dialect or Arabic. The charter proposes to have a The Parental Bilingual Support Center in order to encourage and enhance parental skills and involvement in supervising a child’s homework, e-learning and cyber citizenship skills or assisting a child to reach his or her full bilingual, as well as learning, potential.  This feature addresses the wide social and acculturation gaps that sociologists have pointed out exists between an African immigrant parent and child and between the family and wider Alberta society.

For more details about the proposed Maple Tree Bilingual Charter School or if you need a speaker or more information about Alberta’s Charter School s movement and implications for Public School Policy Reforms in your province, please comment or e-mail me at pier.depaola@shaw.ca