I just want this on record. It's not my question, but I found the numbers out of the environment commissioner's report. The report says that the freshwater quality monitoring program is not monitoring on most federal lands. On first nations reserves, the number of federal lands is 3,000, and the number monitored for our freshwater quality monitoring program is 12. So I think there's a bit of a gap there.
The question I wanted to ask was on the First Nations Land Management Act. I'm asking in the context of the supplementary estimates because $24.1 million is the allocation on an annual basis. I'm sure that changes from year to year. Typically, over the last few years only $13 million to $16 million have been used. I know there's a significant list of first nations that are wanting to be on the program. I think it's about 80. There are ones that are in development and then there are 80 waiting to even get to the development stage.
The other thing is that KPMG has done a study on the economic benefits of the FNLMA and it has demonstrated that there are economic benefits to the first nations on reserves: it adds to self-sufficiency, it speeds up a number of other processes, and so on. It seems like it's a win-win-win. My understanding is that the department and the government is very supportive of FNLMA.
I have a couple of questions about this. Why the delay in bringing new people onto the program? You've demonstrated with the supplementary estimates that you can roll money over. I know it's capital versus operating, but you've demonstrated that money can be rolled over. So why hasn't the money in the past been rolled over into a program that seems to be working quite successfully for first nations and presumably for the government, because it is contributing to economic self-sufficiency? Can you comment on that?