Thank you for the question, Mr. Chair.
I will turn in a moment to Mr. Campbell to help me with this because Mr. Campbell has been responsible for a lot of the work we've done on aboriginal issues in the office. He's intimately familiar with them.
Our report identified four structural impediments. The first one is that most of the services the federal government provides on reserves do not have a basis in legislation. They're not a statutory service. It's not like the Government of Ontario, which has a statutory requirement to provide education services. That does not exist with respect to the services provided on reserve. They have no basis in legislation, for the most part.
The second impediment is the absence of service standards. For most of the programs, what level of service the federal government tends to provide on the reserves is not clearly defined.
The third impediment has to do with the way the programs are funded. Most of the programs are subject to annual contribution agreement funding, which requires that new agreements be prepared and negotiated every year to provide those services on the reserves. By the time they get the money, a big part of the year may have already elapsed.
The last impediment is the capacity of first nations to actually provide those services on reserve. Again, I'll use the example of education. The provincial governments have school boards that work to ensure the education services are provided to all residents of the province. That capacity doesn't exist for the programs on reserves.
If the chairman would allow, I'm sure Mr. Campbell could elaborate, if you would like.