Panel Discussion: Aboriginal Canadians

Aboriginal people are an important part of a nation-wide reading strategy. Many programs already exist, but everyone agrees that there is still much to be done. How do we build on a foundation in which storytelling is highly valued, but where challenges of distance, access, and sometimes poverty can make a reading strategy difficult to implement?

Moderator: Harvey McCue (Ontario)
Ojibway educator, professor, researcher and a specialist in First Nations elementary and secondary education.

Mélanie Valcin(Quebec)
The manager of a variety of community-based literacy programs in Québec, with Frontier College, many of which are in collaboration with aboriginal communities.

Dr. John Kim Bell(Ontario)
Producer, Composer and Conductor. He is the founder of the Canadian Native Arts Foundation, the National Aboriginal Achievement Foundation and the National Aboriginal Achievement Awards.

Michel Noël
Michel Noël self-identifies as a “Québecois of Amerindian origin.” He considers his primary culture to be Native American as he spent the first 14 years of his life in the Algonquin community both in La Vérendrye Park and the Abitibi region. Michel Noël is both an academic adn a ‘man of the land’, spending most of his time on reserves and ancestral land. He is as prolific as his work is varied: over fifty titles, including children’s books, art and craft books, plays, poetry, adult and young-adult fiction. He has won many awards over the course of his career, including the Governor General in 1997, in recognition of the excellence of his oeuvre and his contribution to peaceful relations between peoples.