Why this Manitoulin Island school is blaming the province for missed opportunities for Indigenous people

The president of an Indigenous institution in Manitoulin Island says there has been a lack of equitable funding from the provincial government.

In 2021, the University of Sudbury signed an agreement to transfer its intellectual property in certain Indigenous studies online courses to Kenjgewin Teg. It followed Laurentian University's announcement it was severing ties with its federated schools as it navigated insolvency. 

Since then, Beverley Roy, the president of Kenjgewin Teg, explains the institution has waited patiently for funding from the Ontario government to roll out the program.

"After several letters and communications, we still have not received a favourable response… we're extremely disappointed in the decisions to date," said Roy. 

"We've had this degree ready to go. Now we just need some investment to support its delivery."

A spokesperson at the Ministry of Colleges and Universities wrote to CBC News in an email, saying they are currently having discussions with Indigenous institutes. Those talks include long-term funding to support the development and delivery of programming. They further state the province invested $26.35 million in the Indigenous Institutes Operating Grant from 2023 to 2024. It has a total budget of over $50 million.

Roy says she only received $2 million from that as an operational grant.

"We do receive support from the ministry and those are largely for partner-related certificate degrees type of partnership programs."

The institute has multiple partnerships with universities including Queen's University and Wilfrid Laurier University to bring their curriculum to students in the north. 

"Based on the ministry's reply, they're basically in effect asking us to reconsider what we do in terms of our partnerships and perhaps forgo those partnerships and use our funding to deliver a degree program," Roy said.

"We don't really feel it's an either-or situation. We feel it should be equitable in the same way that other institutions are funded."

Last week, Laurentian University announced the development of a four-year degree program on Indigenous studies. The university hopes the program will be open to students by fall 2025.

Roy says she's concerned Indigenous post-secondary institutions are not getting the same support as other universities. As she explains, other universities rely on government funding on top of internal funds such as tuition fees and endowments. 

"If we're going to really raise reconciliation in terms of how Indigenous education is part of that reconciliation, these are some key things that can easily be done with First Nation-led and governed institutions to have these types of programs of learning actually housed and delivered by institutions such as Kenjgewin Teg," she said.

"It's about taking control of our own education."

Meanwhile, Jennifer Johnson, the dean of the Faculty of Arts at Laurentian University, says the new program will be under the Faculty of Arts' existing budget.

Dominic Beaudry, the associate vice president of Indigenous programs, says the degree will also be different from the University of Sudbury's Indigenous studies curriculum. 

"With the loss of the bachelors of Indigenous studies at University of Sudbury, Laurentian took up upon itself to start creating courses," Beaudry said.

"In the past, a lot of Indigenous studies programs just focused on a lot of trauma narratives and what I mean by that is treaty history, residential school history and missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls…. But moving forward… we also have to create courses that celebrate the success of Indigenous contribution to our modern world."