Thank you very much for a sincere question. This is an area where, I think, our government has a lot to talk about, quite frankly.
Prior to the election of the federal Liberals, we saw discriminatory funding levels for indigenous education across this country, in board after board. What I mean by this is that the dollars spent per child, for lack of a better metric, were far lower in indigenous communities than in a similar provincial system. We fixed that because we know that the education of young people is one of the best things we can do to invest in our country and the success of each person. It has been a hallmark, I think, of our government: to ensure indigenous education systems across this country have funding equitable to what you could expect in provincial systems. We've in fact increased education by 80% since 2016. Again, that's a big number. It defines how big the gap was prior to our election in 2015.
Now, we're not just spending money to improve education systems; we are also building and renovating schools with first nations people, because many of the schools the children were learning in were, quite frankly, abysmal and left to rot by successive governments that didn't make those kinds of investments.
I've had an opportunity to visit schools. You can see bright, happy children and very content teachers in those facilities. They are teaching in ways that are going to help those young people reach their education potential.
The final thing I'll say is that we have been pursuing what we're calling, and what are called, “regional education agreements”, which restore indigenous sovereignty over how education is delivered in communities. In fact, in Quebec there was an amazing opportunity for me to be at the signing of one of these regional education agreements. The young people, educators, students and families were celebrating their ability to design their own curriculum in order to incorporate language, culture, tradition and healing into that curriculum. This will allow their children to have a fair shot at success, just like every other child in that province.
We have, since then, signed four regional education agreements, I think. We have a number under way. We are transforming education in this country, together with first nations, which are leading the way.