Thank you very much.
My name is Peter Dinsdale. I'm the chief executive officer of the Assembly of First Nations. Dale LeClair is the chief of staff. It's certainly an honour to be here to present to the committee. I'd like to thank the member for the honour song and acknowledge that we're on the unceded Algonquin territories. We're pleased to be here to present.
As Mr. LeClair noted, a number of spending priorities have been articulated over the past while, certainly during the campaign. We've endeavoured, as the Assembly of First Nations, to pull together a submission, which we just handed out here this morning. It outlines some of those funding commitments and priorities that were stated during the campaign.
Mr. LeClair already mentioned the need for the removal of the 2% cap. We would also acknowledge that in the federal election there was a commitment to create new funding mechanisms to make sure that first nations are funded appropriately as levels of government. As you may be aware, currently they're funded through contribution agreement-type processes through existing Treasury Board formats and models, which, of course, is problematic in the operation of government institutions.
We've also highlighted in our submission other areas of funding commitments that have been made. First nations education, of course, comes to the forefront—understanding the need for first nations control of first nations education, understanding that during the campaign there were various commitments in the platform and costing out in terms of what it would take. We have commentary around that.
Certainly the child protection and child welfare issue is really pressing upon us, given the recent Canadian Human Rights Tribunal findings of discrimination in funding of on-reserve child welfare. There need to be some remedies, and the budget is a natural opportunity to do that.
We've taken a moment to highlight the need for indigenous languages to be appropriately resourced. Across the country very few indigenous languages are expected to survive, so the kind of honour song you heard this morning would not be sung by future generations, because people would no longer be able to speak that language.
Investments in skills and training are critical. A number of programs are up for renewal and are lapsing. Over the past fiscal year, they have not been funded or increased in any way. We're looking for those to be addressed as well.
Areas of justice around family violence prevention, first nations policing, and aboriginal justice strategies are highlighted. All of them have various programs that are sunsetting, and there are various opportunities to increase programming and to make robust and better programming available.
A very important and critical issue with all Canadians and with first nations is infrastructure. In the case of first nations, we're not talking about public transportation lines and P3s and green energy programs; we're talking about clean drinking water in communities. We're talking about basic housing. We're talking about the basic infrastructure required in communities just to function. It's what we'd expect across Canada. While we appreciate that there have been significant commitments made, there needs to be a specific first nations component. P3 projects won't work, because we don't have the fiscal arrangements in order to have the matching contribution. There are things of that nature, and the types of investments that are required are quite different.
The Prime Minister committed to having clean drinking water within five years. This budget is the perfect opportunity to launch that and get to work on it immediately.
There are other areas in our submission. There are full summary tables as well. I'd be happy to answer any questions.
We promised, because there are two of us, that we'd take only five minutes, so thank you very much.