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Dechinta not teaching armed revolt: director Program offering firearms training to prepare for Northern jobs
Graeme McNaughton
Northern News Services
Published Tuesday, June 25, 2013
SOMBA K'E/YELLOWKNIFE
A Northern university program offering firearms training along with learning about indigenous self-determination is not a call for armed revolt, says an official with Dechinta Bush University.
The Dechinta Bush University class Indigenous Self-determination in Theory and Practice, which is being taught this August at Blachford Lake Lodge, comes with firearms training. - image courtesy of Dechinta Bush University
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The flyer for the August program, which advertises "Indigenous self-determination in theory and practice," followed by "with firearms certification" below is a summer program teaching students what they need to learn for jobs in the North, said one of the school's board members.
"We ran a land-based program in the bush," said Erin Freeland Ballantyne, who sits on the board of directors for Dechinta, which conducts most of its courses at Blachford Lake Lodge – about 20 minutes east of Yellowknife by floatplane.
She added the addition of firearms certification was added as part of an elder's recommendation to include more safety training.
"This isn't at all associated with Idle No More or anything like that," said Freeland Ballantyne of the grassroots aboriginal protest movement that first began in November of last year.
Glen Coulthard, an assistant professor at the University of British Columbia's First Nations study program, will be a guest lecturer for the program.
Coulthard said the firearms safety course will be delivered by a qualified instructor, and is a requirement for obtaining a firearms licence.
The course, which costs $2,000 for NWT residents under the age of 25 and $2,500 for non-residents, will also feature teachings from Leanne Simpson, a professor from Athabasca University; Stephanie Irlbacher-Fox, an adjunct professor from the Canadian Circumpolar Institute at the University of Alberta; and elders from the Yellowknives Dene First Nation.
According to the program's advertisement, it will also "critically explore the Dene struggle for self-determination since the establishment of the Indian Brotherhood of the Northwest Territories in 1970."
The Brotherhood was created to establish Dene rights and advocate for self-rule following the federal proposal of the controversial White Paper, which would have seen the Department of Indian Affairs dissolved, with those responsibilities being transferred to provincial and territorial governments.
The White Paper was later abandoned.
Future programs will include other safety training and skills development, said Freeland Ballantyne, including animal safety training and the use of chainsaws.
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