Please Consider Adding your Signature Open Letter of support to restore funding to First Nations University from Canadian Association of University Teachers

[Heather Souter]

Taanshi,

Please consider adding your signature to this letter or writing your own to
Stephen Harper, Prime Minister of Canada, about restoring funding to the
First Nations University.  It will close if additional funding is not in
place by the end of this summer....

Much good work on the indigenous languages of Canada--especially Cree,
Ojibwe, etc.--is being done there.  Indigenous Canadians are learning how to
do research that fits with their community ways, needs and desires....  The
university is important to us and we need your help to ensure that it
survives....

Eekoshi pitamaa.
Heathe

**************

Subject: Open Letter of support to restore funding to First
NationsUniversity from CAUT

We would like to invite you to sign the Open Letter to Stephen Harper
regarding the Federal Government's funding of First Nations University
of Canada.  The letter is reproduced below.  If you wish to sign the
letter, please go to http://www.caut.ca/fnuc/ and click on the line "Add
your signature to this letter."  I hope you will do so and will forward
this email as widely as possible.  Unless we can get the Federal
Government to restore full funding, the First Nations University will
not survive.

Yours respectfully,

James L. Turk
Executive Director/Directeur général
Canadian Association of University Teachers/
  Association canadienne des professeures et professeurs d'université
2705, promenade Queensview Drive, Ottawa (Ontario) K2B 8K2
Tel/Tél: 613-726-5176, Mobile: 613-277-0488, Fax/Téléc: 613-820-7244

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OPEN LETTER

April 2010

The Hon. Stephen Harper
Prime Minister of Canada

Dear Prime Minister:

In June 2008 you did what no prime minister before has been willing to
do - offer an apology to former students of Indian residential schools.
In that apology you noted that "Two primary objectives of the
residential schools system were to remove and isolate children from the
influence of their homes, families, traditions and cultures, and to
assimilate them into the dominant culture."

Now, less than two years later, your government is forcing the closure
of Canada's only First Nations university -- the sole university in
Canada based on First Nations traditions and cultures. By refusing to
restore full funding for First Nations University, your government will
now make it impossible for First Nations university students to study in
an institution based on First Nations traditions and cultures.

There is a bitter irony in your government's action, coming as it does
after the Federation of Saskatchewan Indian Nations (FSIN) has addressed
all of the concerns that have been expressed about the University's
governance structure and after the FSIN, the First Nations University,
the University of Regina and the Government of Saskatchewan have entered
into a partnership agreement to ensure proper financial and
administrative management of First Nations University.

Your government's refusal to restore full funding, which will cause the
University to close after August 31, 2010, is an act of disrespect to
First Nations peoples in Canada and a continuation of the very practices
for which you apologized in June, 2008.

We urge you to back up your 2008 apology by restoring full Federal
funding to First Nations University immediately so that it can grow and
expand, not have to wind down and close.

Yours truly,



TO ADD YOUR NAME TO THIS OPEN LETTER, GO TO: http://www.caut.ca/fnuc/

Nancy Carter
TUFA Assistant

TUFA Office
Email:  tufa at trentu.ca
Phone:  (705) 748-1011, ext. 7334
Fax:  (705) 748-1651
Web:  www.trentfaculty.ca


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