One of the leading determinants to accessibility at university is the history of families who have gone through the university system. That tends to be the largest single determinant of whether someone goes on to university or not. Unfortunately, in our aboriginal communities we don't have as many examples of that as we would like. I think I mentioned in my presentation that only about 8% of aboriginal Canadians have pursued a university degree.
Putting in place scholarships and measures to support aboriginal education is absolutely critical for the future of the country. When you keep in mind that over the next 20 years 400,000 aboriginal Canadians will be entering the workforce, we need to put in place measures that will provide assistance to encourage them to go on to university.
We have in place what we call reach-back programs that go into the K-12 system. At one point some of those programs were funded through the federal government, but they aren't any longer. We would encourage government to take a look at that.
You mentioned business, and in particular I would refer to the Paul Martin foundation and some of the work the former prime minister has done in that regard. I think members of the committee are familiar with the work they've done. They encourage and provide training for students in the high school stream to go on some business education and business training, as well as providing some start-up funds.