In my region we were stunned this past December when the government decided they were going to cancel a school. We've gone eight years without a grade school in Attawapiskat, and we have no school in Kashechewan. So two communities in my riding have no schools. Neighbouring Fort Severn beside my riding has no school. We had worked eight years to get a school built, yet at the last minute the government decided to move the money elsewhere. North Spirit Lake was starting to build their school when they were told that the money was being pulled.
And as for Rocky Bay First Nation, the government has a report that says there's asbestos in the classrooms and fungal mold on the walls, and the roof is so stressed that a heavy wind or snow could cave it in on the children. That school was cancelled in December 2007, because the government decided that building schools was not going to be part of its five-year plan.
I don't know of any province that could take the money for building schools and shift it to building roads or doing tax cuts. There are guaranteed funds in every budget, it seems, to deal with children, except at the Department of Indian Affairs. Should we not have basic guaranteed rules that money dedicated for schools is going to be a line item, and that we're going to be able to see that line item?
Again, we get back to the lack of accountability and transparency for something as fundamental as children.