Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  Over the period from 1996 to 2006, the increase should have been 6.2% in Canada, and in Quebec it was less; I think it was 4.3% or something like that. So the gap was 2%.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  That is the growth of population and cost of living, both together, per year. Here I have a document from the province saying that their spending on education has increased much more than inflation, at 31.9% versus 15.2% from 1999-2000 to 2006. So in the province, the growth of their budget has been higher than inflation and the growth of the population, but it was the opposite for first nations.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  I would like, if I have time, to say it's very important to compare the same things. Sometimes we refer to funding coming from outside of education, but in Quebec and all other provinces, they also get funding coming from outside of education, so we have to be careful with that.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  It might depend on who you talk to at INAC, because we had a joint working group with INAC on the formula. They did a study too, in 2006. That study also reports that there is no funding to operate a library, and that was a joint study. So it depends, I guess, on who you talk to and how they interpret the formula.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  Yes, as I said earlier, we did present at the forum. We had plans to implement some second-level services, but the minister instead decided to fund two more studies, mainly a vocational study and a study on second-level services. As I said, we got funding to do that major study on second-level services.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  There was an important reform in Quebec. All the curricula were reviewed for all this. A lot of training was given to their teachers, administrators, and all of this. We got nothing for that, so how can you manage to take into consideration that reform? That's very important. I would like to say that for occupational training, we have a letter--I think it's dated June 2006--from our administrator, the director of education of INAC, from headquarters, recognizing that their programs don't fund occupational training and that they were looking to work with us to review their programs.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  A little earlier, I referred to the need to remove the 2% cap. It is important to remember that this 2% has had an impact for more than 10 years and has resulted in funding losses for the First Nations over a 10-year period. Therefore, we are talking about a cumulative loss in Canada of more than $1.5 billion.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  I would like to add that in the memorandum we signed, there was a commitment to collaborate with us on the implementation of a more comprehensive first nations education system. We were hoping that following the presentation of that study we would go forward with that commitment, but the only answer we got was, “Nice study.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  Well, outside of the reserve is not paid through an agreement with the band council. Through the agreement with the band council we know that when some school boards send a resident of a community to a provincial school, there are many examples where the federal government would pay much more to the provincial school than they pay to send the same student residing on reserve to a first nations school.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  As part of the socio-economic forum, a commitment was made to fund two studies, one on occupational training, and the other on second-level services. We have completed both studies. In the study we conducted on occupational training, we obviously looked at the many different types of occupational training that are currently available—training that can be provided without too many requirements at the secondary level, training that has to be provided as part of a group offering or at the regional level, and training that is far more specialized and has to be provided by highly specialized provincial centres.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  I will be brief. The FNEC paper is not our first analysis of this issue. In a sense, it is a summary of all of the many analyses we have done with respect to our funding. The brief is divided into four sections and provides an analysis of the national situation as well as one for the province of Quebec.