Thank you, Chief.
Here's one of the reasons I got into politics. I was working with the Algonquin Nation. We went to meet with an Indian Affairs minister, a nice guy, and we had a question. We thought we'd get an answer on it: why did they take a badly handicapped child out of the community? They wouldn't pay for special ed funding, but they would ship that kid on a bus, with an adult, across the border into Ontario to a provincial system, and then pay the full shot. The kid stayed out in the hallway all day with an adult watching him, and they'd put him back on the bus at the end of the day. We asked the Indian Affairs minister if he didn't think the money would be better spent in providing a special education service in the community. He wouldn't give us a straight answer.
I remember thinking that day that if that's the answer, then that's not good enough. Yet 13 years later, we have the federal government going to the Human Rights Commission on a case of denial of adequate special ed service. In the communities I represent where some kids are not even getting into school because they don't have the funding, they're being denied what every other child takes for granted.
Is the AFN a participant in this Human Rights Tribunal case? Have you heard whether or not the government is going to back down and stop fighting the children on this, or is this going to be another long-drawn-out battle like Cindy Blackstock's battle?