Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I want to thank each and every one: Stephanie and Stephen, along with Romeo—it's good to see you again—and certainly Phyllis.
Phyllis, I was honoured to be in the House of Commons this year. There is only a limited number of MPs in the House now because of COVID restrictions, but I was there in the House that day in September and proudly wore orange. I've read a couple of your books and I salute you. I am an MP from Saskatchewan. We should not forget, and you brought it up, that we had residential schools in this province less than 25 years ago, in 1996. This isn't something that happened 50 or 60 years ago; it is still in the minds of many indigenous people in this province, and I want to thank you for bringing it up.
When I was on the indigenous committee, Truth and Reconciliation.... It's a book that we should all have with us. When you all referenced calls to action 80, 81 and 82, I could flip to that today, and I would agree with most of this. I just want to say thank you for referencing the 94 calls to action. We're looking today at number 80.
As some background, I'm a former school board trustee in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan and then I got elected to the urban section of the Saskatchewan School Boards Association. We did a lot of work from 2006 until 2015, and they're still doing it, teaching about residential schools.
My question would maybe go to Stephanie and Stephen.
I'm frustrated. When I became an MP in Ottawa in 2015-16, when I looked around for an education minister, there was none, yet the federal government hands over millions and millions of dollars to schools on federal reserves. As the Saskatchewan School Boards, and I'm sure it's the same in every province, we do curricula, and yet we never reach out to the federal responsibility of reserves. We're not connecting. We do a good job in Saskatchewan, urban and rural, but we just don't connect with the residential schools on reserves and what they are teaching.
Could somebody talk about that? It's a federal government responsibility, and yet, as provincial school board trustees, we never wanted to go there, and we need to.
Maybe if you don't mind, Stephanie, talk about that, because I have been at your national centre in Winnipeg.