Horwath and Mamakwa release joint statement on curriculum writing

PETERBOROUGH and THUNDER BAY — Official Opposition NDP Leader Andrea Horwath and Indigenous and Treaty Relations critic Sol Mamakwa issued the following statement, jointly, in response to Education Minister Stephen Lecce’s remarks Tuesday morning on the exclusion of new Indigenous-centred curriculum in Ontario schools, to date:

“The history of Indigenous Nations, treaties, residential schools and genocide must absolutely be taught in Ontario schools, in a culturally appropriate, sensitive way.

In 2018, Doug Ford chose not to respect Indigenous history and Indigenous people. He cancelled the Indigenous curriculum-writing sessions and uninvited the Indigenous educators, knowledge keepers and residential school survivors that were prepared to the do the difficult work of curriculum-writing.

His cancellation in 2018 contravened the Truth and Reconciliation Commission Calls to Action 62 and 63.

Together, we’re calling on the Ford government to apologize for that choice, and to immediately reconvene the educators, knowledge-keepers and residential school survivors in a transparent way to finally begin work on curriculum-writing.

That’s certainly not what we got from Education Minister Stephen Lecce on Tuesday. By pretending the Ford government had done nothing wrong, Lecce only compounded the pain and damage his government caused with the choice to cut.”