I would say that this is half full and half empty. I think Canadians have begun to recognize through the government that indigenous education is chronically underfunded. The new funding arrangement has come forward, where we actually now have what I often cautioned leaders about, provincial equivalency. I kept arguing that we were not looking for provincial equivalency, but in fact we were looking at the needs of the child. Every child has a special requirement based on the type of home or the community they came from. Being attached to provincial equivalency gives us a bit of a bump; there's an increase. However, if you really have the child focus, you have to go to what the child needs.
So I think in many ways it's half full and half empty. What I think we're all looking for inside of any capacity-building or any public institution, whether it's health care or education, is consistent, predictable funding. Unfortunately, right now most first nations schools operate—and Delbert can answer this—on a year-to-year funding arrangement. In order to have proper planning and proper predictability, you need to have long-term funding that is guaranteed. That way you can plan further, longer.
From my point of view, giving advice to the Thunderchild community, we certainly welcome the new funding arrangement. We've gone through it side by side. There is an increase. One of the biggest areas that concern us, though, is the issue of learning supports. This is where we're going to start moving into the issue of.... It's not only education we're worried about inside of our institutions, but also the health care of our young people. What we're seeing.... We've done this through the Calgary Academy. They've done the assessments and they've recognized that mental health issues inside first nation communities are very serious issues that reflect upon the ability of a child to learn in a very safe and secure environment.
It's not only education we're beginning to look at, but also child and family services. You'll see other programs you're quite familiar with, such as the Jordan principle, and we also welcome the most recent legislation on child and family services agreements. We think that when you combine those with education, you actually have an opportunity to support the child to have a healthy learning environment.
It's not only the education funding arrangement that we're looking at, but the other types of social supports that are inside the Indigenous Services Canada framework.