Thank you for your question.
The statistic is that something like 96% of aboriginal kids go on to post-secondary education if they get through to grade 12. We should not be focusing on grade 12. We should all be focusing on post-secondary because that's what employers need—people in Canada with post-secondary training.
The real conundrum is the one you've nailed, which is getting them from early childhood development into K to 12, and a good quality K to 12. Part of it is removing these caps. We don't do a cap on immigration. If you get 100 immigrants, you're going to get the funding to train 100 immigrants, yet the same type of thing does not happen when it comes to education with ASETS holders.
We know that 400,000 aboriginal youth are coming into the market. They're going into schools. It wouldn't take an economist very long to figure out what the forecast will be on spending on education, and eventually, through ASETS, and into colleges and universities. It probably should be a pretty simple formula.
The imagination inside communities to get the curriculum adapted, modified, and shaped so that it excites people to stay in school.... This was a question that I believe Brad had earlier. There are tremendous things happening. It doesn't change the merits or the outcome of education. What's happening is the context of the education. It's like figuring out the surface area of a buffalo hide or a deer hide, or the surface area inside a cone of a teepee. What employers want are the people who actually have the essential skills, so that they can analyze solutions and solve problems for their companies.
I think the productivity gap is really an education gap, first of all. If we look at it as a productivity gap, I think it will get people thinking about who should pay, and whether it is an investment or not. No, it's about productivity. Canada needs to do more on our productivity agenda. Investing in northerners through, perhaps, a productivity fund would be a more innovative way to really bring up the quality of education, the employment, and eventually those outcomes.