I have a big document I will send you that explains some stuff. Because of the short period here, I will go over it more in summary.
Many will tell you that where the NEQA is providing services, it is going well, but a lot of commitments in the NEQA are not well implemented or we don't have enough funding to implement them. We will give you a summary of where it is going wrong.
In terms of health and social services, it's a good thing that we just got a new CLSC building in Kawawachikamach that will open in the next month. This is really positive; the community has been seeking that for years, and it's happening. However, according to the NEQA, Quebec “shall” fund a full range of health and social services. But we've realized over the years that the funding is not enough to offer all those services. Compare Kawawachikamach with other Cree communities of the same size that are under the JBNQA. For example, a Cree community of the same size as Kawawachikamach could have funding of about $4,000 per capita. For the Naskapis we're talking about more like $2,500. There's a big drop when we compare the Cree with the Naskapis. We have much lower funding than they do for implementing the same kinds of commitments that are in the JBNQA and NEQA.
It's the same thing for non-insured health benefits. According to the NEQA, non-insured health benefits should be covered through the NEQA through Quebec. Again, the Cree get full reimbursement, 100% of those costs. The Naskapi need to take it from our own CLSC budget, so we are limited and we don't have enough funding to cover all those costs. We lack funding in health.
In terms of education, I can say education is going well. We have a good school, JSMS, the Jimmy Sandy Memorial School in Kawawachikamach, offering primary and secondary levels. We just opened an adult education program last year. Even though it was in the NEQA—we were supposed to have funding for that—we have had 12 years of negotiations with Quebec and Canada. We have that education service offer now.
We have about 100 Naskapis studying outside the community in post-secondary and vocational training right now, which is really positive. However, one of the challenges is that when Naskapis go outside the community, sometimes the programs are not adapted to them; sometimes there is culture shock. The nation and the school want to have a vocational training centre in the community to offer that kind of service in the community, as with the Cree and the Inuit. Even though it already exists in the Cree and the Inuit territories, it still doesn't exist still in the Naskapi. We're still in negotiations with Quebec and Canada to implement that service.
Regarding hunting, fishing, and trapping, the hunter support program is a program that the Cree, the Inuit, and the Naskapi have, although they're a little bit different. It provides funding to the Naskapi to keep their traditional activity of hunting and fishing on the ground. The issue on that in the NEQA is that when it was signed, they said they would give $60,000 per year and that it would be increased by inflation, but they never thought about the increase in population. The population has tripled since 1978, so we have three times more people for the same pot. We don't have enough funding to keep that program going.
When the Inuit and the Cree signed the JBNQA, it took into consideration the increase in population and the increase in participation. So over the years, the difference in funding between the Naskapi and the Cree and the Inuit has become very high. Right now, 40 years later, we are in big trouble.
We also have an issue around environmental consultation of the nation. Under the JBNQA they created different instances that oversee environmental assessment on the territory. One of them is the Kativik Environmental Quality Commission. On that commission we have some people nominated by Quebec and some nominated by KRG, the Kativik Regional Government, where the Naskapi have one of 17 seats. The Naskapi have been requesting to have a part in the Kativik Environmental Quality Commission for quite a while; we don't have a seat there, so the Naskapi are not implicated in those assessments.
Maybe you can jump to the conclusion, Noah.