Shannen Koostachin left home at 13, and if she'd stayed, she would have gotten $8,000 in funding. She had to live with my family, and Indian Affairs paid $16,000 in the provincial system. The gap was enormous.
I want to stick with these numbers. Again, excuse me with my grade 10 math. The Prime Minister promised $2.6 billion in core K-to-12 funding over four years. In the budget it's over five years. So the next government actually delivers $800 million of that. If we look at a four-year number, we drop off $800 million. That puts us at about $1.8 billion over that four years.
I'm interested that $800 million is described as transformative, and that includes money to the Paul Martin foundation. I have great respect for Paul Martin, but I don't know of any other provincial system that pays outside agencies when it's supposed to be core funding.
I have two quick questions. One, are we going to have a legislative framework, as the TRC has asked for with education and as the Auditor General has, so that we can set some standards? Two, if this transformative money is not core funding, then what is it?