I'm trying to think how I can really show the differences in the funding levels at the provincial institutions, what we know as Frontier Collegiate. They are the provincially operated schools here in Manitoba.
Back home, for instance, in our community of Fox Lake up in Gillam, Manitoba, our high school students have to leave that community and go to the neighbouring community in Gillam. It's where Frontier operates that school. Frontier bills us, for example, $1, but we have funding for only maybe 60¢ to the dollar. We're still expected to pay the dollar, the amount Frontier School is billing us for the students who are attending its schools.
What that means overall to the band and to the communities is that they continue to run deficits, and that's what I mean when I say that essential services that are needed by these students have to be absorbed by someone somewhere, and it's usually the bands. The tribal council can't absorb those costs because we don't have the funding.
If anyone's going to compare any kind of level of service in education, they can simply look at the provincially operated schools and compare the current funding levels that our communities have. You will actually see what the difference is and it's usually 60¢ to the dollar for the level of services that are provided. Fox Lake is not even considered remote and isolated when you compare it to the 10 other communities that Keewatin Tribal Council services.