Murray Sinclair wants aboriginal grads to celebrate successes

The headof Canada's Truth and Reconciliation Commissionwants indigenous university graduatesacross the country, ortheir friends and loved ones,to flood his Facebook page withaccomplishments.

Justice Murray Sinclair, who is alsoManitoba's first aboriginal judge,is asking people to post Facebook pictures and stories of university graduations and otherachievements.

Sinclair sayshe wants to change people's attitudes about education and make aboriginal Canadiansproud of their everyday accomplishments.

"I just finished reading a blog by [CBCreporter] Duncan McCue about how aboriginal people are portrayed in the media. One of the comments he made was the four 'Ds' are applicable: drumming, dancing, dead or drunk, Sinclair said in an interviewWednesday.

• ANALYSIS | Duncan McCue:What it takes for aboriginal people to make the news
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That prompted Sinclairto post the following call-out on Facebook for photographs and a line or two about the accomplishments for aboriginal people:"Everyone who has a University graduate in the family or who's a friend this year post an announcement. If you graduated post an announcement. And lots of pics. Let's make ourselves proud."

While Sinclairlauds the efforts of the Indspire Awards formerly known as the National Aboriginal Achievement Awardshe said the First Nations community needs to do more.

"We're only honouring 14 people [through the aboriginal awards] and there are so many people we don't honour through events like that, he said.

I thought, 'Well, it's about time that we made some kind of a public show of those people who are achieving things on an everyday basis and what they're doing."

Graduation rates for aboriginal students are still lagging behind when it comes to post-secondary education but that's no reason to be silent, he said.

"I'm a bit tilted by the experience of having to listen to residential school stories for so long now, that there is so much sadness over the past and and education, I want people to recognize that education's a good thing," he said.

"Many of them are people who quietly achieve those things and then go about their daily lives and we don't acknowledge it, and I think we need to acknowledge it."

Inspiring others

Among the numerous comments and photographs that have appeared in response to Sinclair's call is a post about Travis Bighetty, who maintained straight As through his bachelor of social work program. He's going for his master's degree after he graduates this fall.

"I never thought about how it's going to inspire my friends," Bighetty told CBC News on Wednesday.

Fred Shore, a nativestudies professor at the University of Manitoba, saidthings have changed for aboriginal post-secondarystudents and graduatesover the years.

"I remember when I graduated with my PhD,there were very few aboriginal people either in the crowd or on the stage," he said.

Shore said Sinclair's post is important for reaching students who might haveotherwise thought a university educationis out of theirreach.

"They see something like that and think, 'Wow, we can do it,'" he said. "Not only can we do it, we've done it."