Native artist offended over Ontario Premier telling people not to waste time weaving baskets

Ontario Premier Doug Ford is being scrutinized after telling students not to pick “basket-weaving courses” following cuts to the Ontario Student Assistance Program (OSAP). The program now limits maximum grant coverage from 85 per cent of tuition to 25 per cent Ford said students were choosing “basket weaving courses, and there’s not too many baskets being sold out there,” adding that they should instead focus on in-demand careers.

Not everyone agrees, somehow. Spencer Lunham Jr., a third-generation Indigenous basket maker from the Chippewas of Kettle and Stony Point First Nation, called Ford’s comments “disrespectful” and “wrong" in an interview with Canada's taxpayer-funded broadcaster, the CBC.

“He doesn’t know what he’s talking about,” Lunham said. “It’s actually disrespectful to the people that live it every day.”

Basket weaving, he explained, is a full-time craft that can provide a sustainable income. He claims he sells between 200 baskets annually for prices ranging from $150 to $3,000. His work includes both utility baskets and traditional, intricate designs that require a multi-step, days-long process of harvesting and preparing black ash trees Lunham comes from a family of basket makers. His grandmother, aunt, and uncle all practiced, and his aunt Faye taught him his first basket. He teaches workshops at universities, colleges, and Indigenous communities, instructing hundreds of students in traditional techniques.

“It’s a beautiful art and it’s also a part of our culture,” Lunham said. “I think, as Native people, we’ve lost enough.”

He said basket weaving is not only economically viable but also deeply tied to Indigenous cultural revival. His students, he added, often describe the process as “healing.”

“I’ve done it, I’m still doing it, and I’m doing well financially,” Lunham said. “What Ford said was wrong.”