There's one other aspect of this that I would like to address as well. In 2015 the department announced its new approach to fiscal relations with self-governing aboriginal communities and a policy commonly referred to as fiscal harmonization that would apply to self-governing nations and Inuit communities. The policy includes formulas for determining federal funds transferred to indigenous governments, but the policy still includes the fixed amount element within the funding formula for indigenous governance. It also reduces the per capita amount given to indigenous governments with higher populations.
Some indigenous communities have complained that the provision of social services is not scalable in that the community members should not be penalized for the large populations of the communities. How would you respond to that part of that whole funding concern?
I say that because I have an indigenous community in my riding, and that's exactly the situation they're trying to deal with right now. They're really between a rock and a hard place.