Indigenous and Northern Affairs Committee on June 4th, 2009

[Céline Laverdière]

I will be brief.

With respect to access to vocational training for young aboriginals, there is no funding problem for those between age 4 and 21. These young people may take a vocational training program outside the community, if there is not one offered within the community. The challenge is to develop vocational training possibilities within the communities. But access to these programs is available for people in the 4 to 21 age group.

[The Chair, Conservative, Bruce Stanton]

Thank you. Your time is up.

[Marc Lemay, Bloc, Abitibi—Témiscamingue, QC]

I just want to understand the last thing that was said. What is meant by the 4 to 21 group?

[The Chair, Conservative, Bruce Stanton]

Okay, for clarification.

[Céline Laverdière]

We're talking about the age group—between 4 and 21.

[The Chair, Conservative, Bruce Stanton]

Do you understand?

Thank you, Mr. Lemay.

Now we'll go to Madam Crowder for seven minutes.

Madam Crowder.

[Jean Crowder, NDP, Nanaimo—Cowichan, BC]

Thanks, Mr. Chair, and thanks for coming before the committee.

I have a comment before I get to my question. In your presentation, you were saying that investment alone will not lead to increased quality of education. However, the department and the minister have admitted that a 2% cap has been in place since 1996, and the Auditor General, in her 2004 report, identified that there was at least an 11% population growth. If we presume that in 1996 there was a level playing field between federally controlled and provincially controlled investment, and we know there wasn't, it goes beyond all imagination that we wouldn't call for additional investment, given that increasing gap between 2% and the population growth.

That's simply a comment.

My question, and probably no surprise, has to do with libraries. My understanding of what you have presented to the committee is that the money that comes before first nations...they have flexibility in terms of funding other services, but my understanding of the 2003 national program guidelines is that libraries were not specifically included. They include things like salaries for staff, support for culture and language, professional development and so on, but these expenditures do not include school library services, library books, equipment or materials.

I'm having trouble understanding. There's a difference between what I'm hearing you say and what I understand from the guidelines. Are libraries specifically included in those guidelines, and if they are, what amount is allocated per student?

[Kathleen Keenan]

For any of the elements there is not any specific allocation per student. It's a global fund that's available for instructional services, and the first nation community attributes the funds to whatever priorities they have.

Under education, there's funding made available for the books and CDs and so on that might be used in a library, but the construction of the library would be under a different program.

[Jean Crowder, NDP, Nanaimo—Cowichan, BC]

We understand that. That's a capital fund, and I won't even get into the underfunding in the capital fund for now. My understanding of what you're saying, then, is that there's no specific allocation for libraries.

[Kathleen Keenan]

There's no specific allocation for any element.

[Jean Crowder, NDP, Nanaimo—Cowichan, BC]

But I want to focus on libraries. There's no specific allocation for libraries, and the amount of funding that a first nation gets is supposed to cover technology, libraries, counselling support, sports and recreation, all of those things.

I know everybody says there's not comparable funding, but in British Columbia, and I'm sure it's the same in Quebec, when you look at the funding bands get for education, if you do the gross division of students into that amount of funding, it is not close to what provinces are getting, or what the bands themselves have to pay to the provinces.

[Kathleen Keenan]

From the data we've seen so far, that varies widely across the country, and it varies within each region.

[Jean Crowder, NDP, Nanaimo—Cowichan, BC]

In my riding of Nanaimo--Cowichan, the amount the band has to pay to the provincial school is not the amount they get under their memorandum of understanding.

[Kathleen Keenan]

We'll look at that community, but what we have seen is that it varies widely across the country, and in some regions there are many first nations that are receiving more than they're paying for their provincial tuition.

[Jean Crowder, NDP, Nanaimo—Cowichan, BC]

Could you provide us with a list of those first nations that get more than they're paying for provincial tuition? I think the committee would be interested in seeing how many first nations out of the 633 are getting more than they're paying for their provincial tuition.

[Kathleen Keenan]

We have that work under way now. That's part of where we need to get to when we look at what's already on the table.

[Jean Crowder, NDP, Nanaimo—Cowichan, BC]

I've been in band schools versus provincial schools, and the difference is shocking—it's shocking! I was in one school where the condition of the building was so bad that they had a girder holding up the wall. I would argue that any engineer who went in to look at that school would say that it was unsafe. The gym floor had mould.

I want to come back to page 12 where you talked about $1.3 billion and 120,000 first nations students, which you say equates to $10,833 per student. On page 15 of the paper on first nations education funding, they do the same math, except they take out the amount that goes to INAC headquarters for administration costs, the amount that goes to provincial and private schools for tuition costs, and then some of the other administration costs. If you subtract all of those amounts out of the $1.3 billion, what's the cost per student that the band actually gets?

[Kathleen Keenan]

It would depend—

[Jean Crowder, NDP, Nanaimo—Cowichan, BC]

On average. You've done an averaging formula on page 12. Since you've done this math, I want to know, on average, once you subtract all of those other costs, what the actual amount per student is.

[Kathleen Keenan]

We'll come back to you on that.

[Jean Crowder, NDP, Nanaimo—Cowichan, BC]

I know we've been talking about Quebec, but this is happening all over Canada. The department admitted that there was underfunding happening in British Columbia, and they instituted an interim band-operating funding formula that directed an additional $9 million to British Columbia, because of the problems. However, the Province of B.C. subsequently increased the funding of public schools by approximately 26.8%, which resulted in renewed large gaps in funding—this was in 2005—and the first nations schools continued to receive approximately 17% less than public schools on average, taken across the different regions. The numbers that we're hearing are from every province. Surely all first nations can't be incorrect in saying that they're getting less than the provincial funding formula.

[Christine Cram]

That's what we talked about after phase two, and we are already working with AFN and other organizations such as FNEC on the comparability issue. We're not denying there isn't a real challenge in comparability, but a lot of work needs to be done to figure out, first, what would be comparable, and, second, how you would maintain it in the future. Nathan Matthew has been working very conscientiously and hard on this matter for some time.

[Jean Crowder, NDP, Nanaimo—Cowichan, BC]

Thirty years, I think. That was when he did the first paper on control of Indian education.

[The Chair, Conservative, Bruce Stanton]

We're out of time now. Did you want to finish up on that?

[Christine Cram]

No, I think that's okay.