U of S Economist Asks: What Will Saskatchewan Look Like in 50 years?
Posted April 12, 2006
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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE - Wednesday, April 12/2006
2006-04-06-AR
U of S Economist Asks: What Will Saskatchewan Look Like in 50 years?
Aboriginal Peoples will catch up educationally and economically to the rest
of Saskatchewan when they become at least half the population around the
middle of the 21st century, says University of Saskatchewan economics
professor Eric Howe.
"Because of growth in Aboriginal education and entrepreneurship, the
province will be transformed in a way that is inconceivable to many current
residents," he says.
"Saskatchewan has no higher social priority than to increase the extent to
which Aboriginal people fully participate in the economic mainstream."
Howe will present his new research at Saskatchewan with an Aboriginal
Majority: Education and Entrepreneurship, a public forum presented by the
Saskatchewan Institute of Public Policy (SIPP), Tuesday, April 18th, 4 p.m.
to 6 p.m. at Alvin Buckwold School (715 East Drive). Roger Maaka, head of
Native studies at the U of S, and Patricia Prowse, superintendent of
education for Saskatoon Public Schools, will respond to Howe's presentation.
Currently, Saskatchewan's Aboriginal population is disproportionately young
with a high fertility rate, whereas the non-Aboriginal population is
markedly old with a low fertility rate. Consequently, says Howe, the
Aboriginal population will reach at least 50 per cent of the province around
2050.
Aboriginal Peoples in Saskatchewan have a higher rate of financial return on
education than the rest of the population and as a result average
educational attainment is improving at an extraordinary rate, says Howe.
Between 1991 and 1996, Aboriginal entrepreneurship in Saskatchewan grew by
150 per cent more than non-Aboriginal. Between 1996 and 2001, the growth of
Aboriginal entrepreneurship exceeded non-Aboriginal by 800 per cent.
Saskatchewan's Aboriginal Peoples have a large financial incentive to seek
post-secondary education. In fact, says Howe, the greatest financial return
on education in both Canada and the United States is earned by Aboriginal
females.
"The U of S has created more special programs for Aboriginal Peoples than
any other university in Canada," says Howe. "The high financial rate of
return on programs such as these has increased the demand for education and
the special programs have increased the supply. The effect is that
Aboriginal people in Saskatchewan will soon catch up educationally."
Howe notes that this economic and educational integration does not mean
cultural annihilation for Aboriginal Peoples in the province.
"The survival of Aboriginal cultures will depend on what individual
Aboriginal people want," says Howe. "But individual wealth can help the
process of cultural preservation because wealth gives an individual greater
power and great freedom to preserve more."
This is the second time the province has experienced a large, growing,
economically marginalized population, says Howe. The first time was at the
beginning of the 20th Century with the large and rapidly growing population
of immigrants from Eastern European countries.
"There is a surprising degree of similarity between the earlier stereotypes
of Eastern European immigrants and those of Aboriginal people 100 years
later," says Howe.
Eastern Europeans immigrants were thought of as poor, illiterate, diseased,
morally lax, politically corrupt, and religiously deficient.
"And we all know what happened," says Howe, who is optimistic about
Saskatchewan's future. "Now, we fail to take ethnic note when our premier
has an Eastern European name like Romanow or an Anglo-Saxon one like
Calvert. We were transformed then and we will be transformed again. It's
déjà vu all over again."
SIPP, founded in 1998, is a partnership between the University of
Saskatchewan, the University of Regina and the Government of Saskatchewan,
with a mandate of expanding knowledge and understanding of public policy
concerns in Canada through supporting research and stimulating public
debate.
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For more information, contact:
Eric Howe
Economics Department
College of Arts and Science
University of Saskatchewan
(306) 966-5212
eric.howe@usask.ca
David Hutton
Research Communications
University of Saskatchewan
(306) 966-6490
dave.hutton@usask.ca
www.usask.ca/research
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