On Wednesday, Randy Robinson graduated from the University of British Columbia, and later Thursday, he'll be watching his mother Jocelyne do the same.
The Robinsons, who are from the Timiskaming First Nation in Que., share a strong commitment to education. Randy is one of Jocelyne’s seven children, and all of them have now attended post-secondary education.
Randy, 31, who worked in a number of odd jobs before heading back to school, has just graduated with a law degree, and now hopes to ensure that aboriginals are better represented in the courts.
“My main goal is to help resolve the over-representation of aboriginal persons in the criminal justice system in the capacity as an advocate,” he told CTV’s Canada AM Thursday.
Jocelyne, a long-time high school teacher, says she went back to school to try to better understand why aboriginals are so under-represented in the field of science.
“I saw a need where I was working, there was a gap, an underrepresentation of indigenous students in science and technology,” she said.
The two were often on campus at the same time, which Randy says he loved, because they could go for coffee and catch up.
“It’s nice to have support on campus,” he said.
Both say that while they are proud of their degrees, what they really want is to use them to help improve the lives of other indigenous peoples.
“It’s important to get the degree but how you use it is really what matters,” Randy said, adding that’s a lesson he learned from his mother.
“She’s very dedicated to the work that she does and dedicated to improving indigenous people’s lives and well-being. I totally credit my mother for that lesson,” he said.
Helping seven kids get into post-secondary education wasn’t easy for Jocelyne, who raised all seven as a single mother, following a difficult divorce. She says she’s always believed it’s important to go to bed each night knowing you worked hard and did your best.
“Yes, it was a challenge. (But) I share that challenge with many indigenous people in Canada,” she said.
Jocelyne is proud of what she and her children have achieved, noting it wasn’t that long ago that indigenous people couldn’t go to university—or even leave the reserve.
“Any advancement in education needs to come with an understanding of the historical context from which we come,” she said.
While the Robinsons’ concurrent graduation is unique, Jocelyne looks forward to the day that indigenous people graduating with advanced degrees will be commonplace.
“Today is a good day to give Canada a glimpse of what it could be like for indigenous people,” she said.
