I've never received a really good answer. To me, I find it bordering on criminal when we look at the poverty of these communities. In Attawapiskat, I'm told, there are no plans, period, to build a school; it just isn't going to happen, after eight years of negotiations. I mention that because just this May the Kawartha Pine Ridge District Public School Board and the Bluewater District School Board led an initiative all the way to the national school boards of Canada to call on the federal government to put in place a plan.
I don't know of another instance when provincial school boards across Canada say that the failure to service children is to such a degree that as provincial school boards in various provinces we have to write to the federal government to say we need a plan--you simply can't cancel schools like Attawapiskat on a whim. Children have a right to education. That's a fundamental right. And yet--as you said, Mr. Campbell--we deal in the area of policy at the federal level when it comes to first nations, and the provinces deliver services. Well, the federal government is obligated to deliver services to these communities, and they don't.
I just don't understand why, in 2008, we don't have standards that we can examine, transparencies that we can compare, and even basic goals, because any educational institution, any education system, has to have that. Why do we not have that at the federal government?