The policy gap we're trying to study is actually separate and distinct from those two reports. It's separate and distinct in a couple of very important ways.
The three national indigenous organizations, and specifically the ITK, have dedicated funding through indigenous infrastructure. The challenge we're facing in this country is that there is no specific funding stream for jurisdictions outside the ITK, the Métis Nation and the Assembly of First Nations reserve and band council governance.
For the issue that has been brought to the attention of housing providers in cities and activists around this file right across the country, we're looking to focus on studying those areas that are not funded, not the areas that are funded. There is a clear indication that we need to increase funding in the three NIOs, but there is absolutely no dedicated funding and support structure or funding mechanism, nor a national organization yet around urban, rural and northern housing strategies outside the treaty system.
The treaties in the north are modern treaties and their members are not voting members as part of the AFN. Inuit people living in Ottawa are not part of the ITK or part of the governance for the funding stream for the ITK. People living in rural communities outside of urban centres are often challenged in terms of accessing infrastructure programs because of the way in which they're built. There is no indigenous-led and indigenous-designed or delivered housing program in these three spaces. That is why the motion is sculpted specifically the way it is. It's why it's directed specifically the way it is. While there are some very good names on the list— I've vetted them with indigenous caucus members in the House—bringing in the AFN to talk about a housing program where it doesn't serve its members is, quite frankly, going to perpetuate the problem that we're trying to solve with this study.
When we say urban, rural, and northern, we are explicitly saying non-ITK, non-Métis Nation, and non-AFN-led housing programs. Those have been studied, and properly studied in the Senate. We're talking about a fourth direction—a fourth stream clearly identified in the Canadian Housing and Renewal Association's study on this and clearly enunciated through a group of housing providers in the homeless sector at a recent meeting in Ottawa.
That's the group we need to study. Those are the housing providers. Those are the people with lived experience. Those are the people with expertise who we need to hear from, so we can design a new fourth program to serve a population that is not being currently served by any government program deliberately, beyond a $225 million fund over the next three years, which we put in the last budget.
We need a much bigger program. We need to understand how it works in those three spaces. We need to understand what the scope of this problem is and what the principle should be around serving this population. We need to hear from urban, rural and northern housing providers about the difficulties they're having accessing established programs and why they don't serve us well.
Listening to the AFN, quite frankly, would be like talking to somebody from Prince Edward Island about a challenge they're having in B.C. with a local municipal issue. It's outside its jurisdiction, its scope or its experience. We need to focus in on those housing providers. They are ample across the country. There are good names we can all provide together.
