I actually was worried that it was going to be an accrual accounting filibuster for a moment there. So I'm very pleased that my honourable colleague kept himself within ten minutes on an issue he's very passionate about.
I think many people were very shocked by what came out in terms of the failure for the first nations family services program. Anybody who has worked in any of these communities will see that this is the way business is done. You point out the obligation that is laid upon communities to meet provincial standards, without the federal government having any concurrent obligation to provide to provincial standards. You talk about the outdated formula from 1988 that is for child and family services. It's the same in education, a 1988 standard that's based on every factor that no longer exists.
The other element in this is a 1996 funding cap, which has basically left communities now with a dramatic rise in population, dramatic increase in costs for travel for isolated communities, and also the fact that whenever a child is moved into a provincial education system or into a provincial system, the rising costs charged back to the federal government have to come out of band funding someplace else. Communities are now losing 23¢ on a 1996 dollar and they're still having to maintain these obligations.
Beyond the massive negligence that's in place—and I think it's systemic negligence, it's designed negligence—people simply don't want to spend money on helping first nations children at the government level. I can't see it any other way. But there's also a lack of any standards for rules, for transparency, for obligatory standards that you would have at the provincial level when dealing with children. Have you found anything to deal with basically the vacuum that's there in terms of what the obligation is for a federal agency dealing with children?