MP demands Liberal government provide funding for Six Nations language school

Standing at the site on Friday of what is to be the new Kawenn:iio/Gaweni:yo language school in Ohsweken, Brantford-Brant MP Larry Brock demanded the Liberal government provide funding for the build.

“Students are learning in a dimly-lit room with no windows and potable water issues,” said Brock, surrounded by a couple dozen students.

“Build this school. Enough delay.”

Since its inception in 1986 by a group of parents committed to preserving the Cayuga and Mohawk languages, the private school has been without a proper building.

“It started in parents’ garages,” said teacher and resource developer Arihwaiens Martin. “It has been in borrowed rooms and rundown schools. There has never been a budget for a new school. This is the furthest we’ve got.”

Kawenni:io/Gaweni:yo is the only language immersion school in Canada that offers Cayuga and Mohawk languages ​​from kindergarten to Grade 12. Both of these Indigenous languages ​​are critically endangered.

For more than a decade, the school has been operating from the second floor of the Iroquois Lacrosse Arena through the kindness of its owner, said Martin.

Six Nations of the Grand River band council donated a piece of land on Tuscarora Road several years ago for the new school build. Martin said the land has been serviced but the cost of constructing a building has skyrocketed from an estimated $7 million in 2009 to about $32 million today. About $3 million has been gathered through fundraising.

“It’s almost disgusting having to do so much work for so long,” said Six Nations elected Chief Mark Hill. “We as a community have done our share. Now it’s time for the government to come to the table.”

Hill said millions of dollars leave the territory in excise tax paid by Six Nations cigarette manufacturer Grand River Enterprise.

“It’s time to start to revert it back to the territory,” he said.

Brock called it “shameful” the Liberal government has fulfilled just 13 of the 94 of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada’s Calls to Action in 2015. One of them calls for the federal government to provide sufficient funds for “Aboriginal language revitalization and preservation. ”

Brock said he has raised the issue of funding for the language school in the House of Commons and submitted a petition, but has been unable to secure a meeting with Marc Miller, minister of Crown-Indigenous Relations.

“Everything has fallen on deaf ears,” said Brock. “There are empty words and unfulfilled promises. This community doesn’t need empathy from this Liberal government. It needs action.”

Martin said there are currently 124 students at Kawenni:io/Gaweni:yo but lack of space means they are having to turn away families who want to enroll their children.

“It’s heartbreaking because it’s denying the family and extended community the opportunity to learn.”

School principal Louise Hill said of the 16,000 Six Nations of the Grand River residents, just two per cent are speakers of the Cayuga and Mohawk languages.

Students opened and closed Friday’s event speaking in their first languages. Leroy Hill, secretary of the Haudenosaunee Confederacy Council of Chiefs, said “teaching and learning of language is foremost and we have to work together.”

“We are going to make this happen.”