An open letter to Canada from a teacher grieving with his school and community. The conversation and awareness must continue.
Dear Canada,
My name is Kurtis Schmitz and, I am a secondary teacher at Aglace Chapman Education Centre, a school located some 500 km Northwest of Thunder Bay, in Kitchenahmaykoosib Ininnuwug First Nation, also known as K.I. or Big Trout Lake.
I write to you today because my community and its neighbouring community of Wapekeka are in crisis. Three young girls, only 12 years old, have passed away by means of their own hand, two in January of this year, and another yesterday, a student from my school.
After the deaths in January, I wrote to Member of Parliament Charlie Angus and Minister for Indigenous and Northern Affairs Carolyn Bennett as a teacher fighting for the future of his students. I shared with them that when I look at my students, I see not only who they are today, but also the potential of who they may someday be. Whether they choose to be doctors, nurses, trades people or construction workers, teachers, or lawyers, I see into the future, when I look in their eyes.
That Monday morning in January when we learned of the first death, however, I stood in front of my class and expected to see that hope for the future and the contempt for homework that I usually see. But I didn’t see it. It was as if a dense fog rolled in and my capacity to see their futures was hidden.
A room that is usually filled with laughter, and the conversations of weekend exploits had fallen silent. When I looked at their faces, I could not see that hope. The news of loss spreads quickly in a small community; it takes only a few hours, even minutes for every community member to hear of stories like these. By the time I could muster a response to the situation, the worst possible scenario struck: another child had taken her life.
In the North, in terrible times like these, the school can be a haven for the students, a safe place that will not judge you for your grief, or force you to keep a stiff upper lip, but it is a communal space to come together, to be consoled, and if need be talk to a trained professional, teacher or friend. But often a trained counselor is not available, and can only come once every six weeks to my school.
So it is up to friends, family, and teachers to advise on top of our regular jobs and responsibilities. I teach a Canadian History course to grade nine and ten students, and in the last few weeks we have been covering civil rights movements in Canada and the U.S., following the footsteps of Martin Luther King Jr., Viola Desmond, Chief Dan George, and Elijah Harper. How do I explain to my students that the fight for equal rights has not yet been won? How do I explain that they have inherited a fight that they might not ever win in their lifetimes?
That they are not considered worthy of the same treatment of sons and daughters of those to the South?
Mr. Angus reached back out to me. He spoke with me and my students spoke to them in our classrooms. Unfortunately, this is not an uncommon occurrence in Northern communities like ours, and has been a news bulletin on the front page of CBC Indigenous far too many times, but having someone respond and recognize my students’ heartache was important. The students had the opportunity to share with
Charlie how this impacts them, and ideas they had about solutions. The fog began to lift, ever so slightly in my classroom.
Despite my letter writing, the phone calls and well-meaning words, despite my students getting to share their thoughts and ideas with an MP from the North, today I walked into my school to hear that the worst had happened again, this time in our community. A young girl of 12 years old, a grade six student of our school, had taken her life.
The proud communities of Wapekeka and K.I. are devastated by these losses of innocent life, and are looking for some reason for this tragedy, and maybe looking for someone to blame. But instead of looking at themselves, or each other, I think they should be looking South. That blame falls on everyone in this Nation’s shoulders. That blame belongs to all Canadians, including the Members of Parliament who sit in the House of Commons.
Those are the people who actively decide to give my school and my students less funding than any other provincial school system in Canada. They decide that my students, their lives and their futures are not worth the same amount as students in the public-school system.
They, as an elected Member of Parliament and representative of you, Canada, decide that because my students were not born in Ottawa, Vancouver or Montreal, they do not deserve to be heard or listened to. Their decisions to only offer 10 per cent of promised funding resulted in a young girl waiting a week to be flown out for counselling support, resulting in her suicide.
How many young boys and girls must we lose before Canadians realize that reacting to tragedy is not a sustainable practice? We must get out in front of these issues, we must ensure that all schools in the North are staffed with certified mental health professionals, and not just for the weeks after a tragedy, but in the dark hours before these desperate acts.
We need access to care, to counselling, and better education funding to end this crisis in the North. I want my students to know that there are people who care about their futures, I want them to know that they are not alone on a fly-in reserve in Northern, Ontario. I want you to tell Mr. Trudeau that sunny ways should not be reserved for a select group of Canadians.
That the sun still shines in the North, though on days like today it is hard to feel its warmth. I need you to tell your MP that it is unacceptable for little girls to die waiting for funding. I need you to tell Minister Bennett that enough is enough. That Canadians care about all the children under it’s flag. I ask you I need you to put the hope back into my students’ eyes; I need you to put the hope back in their teacher’s eyes.
Thank you for reading this,
Kurtis Schmitz
