I'll start with the work that we've tried to do with the federal government.
Starting in 2008 or so, when Inuit wanted to create a national Inuit strategy on education, we brought the federal government and the provinces, territories and all education authorities together to try to come up with terms of reference or a path forward for improving educational outcomes for K-to-12 Inuit students and also for post-secondary students.
The accord that was signed was meant to be a starting point. We were so excited for the possibility of further federal funding for specific targeted interventions that would be very much appreciated by educational authorities. They were Inuit-specific and allowed for culture and language, for greater access to social programs, or for specific accreditation standards, especially when it came to teacher attainment and accreditation. These interventions would bring more Inuit into the school program or into post-secondary education. We built our national strategy around this idea that we could transform the system and that all jurisdictions would be with us.
Ultimately, people retreat back into the status quo. It's very easy to do that.
Also, I can understand how hard it is for a federal government to get into a space that a province or territory has deemed its own, even if it does not do a very good job with it. If you look at our educational attainment and you look at the infrastructure in our communities for education in relation to other communities, it's obvious that there's a massive deficit, but transforming that space and allowing any partner who wants to help is not necessarily what we have experienced.
We still remain hopeful, and, through the Inuit-Crown Partnership Committee, we do have a structure whereby education and early learning are priorities within the bilateral space between Inuit leadership and the Crown. However, we are still struggling with that basic idea of what is possible and the extent to which the federal government is willing to put itself in a difficult scenario for Inuit children.
This question is not just in education. It's also in relation to housing. It's also in relation to the implementation of UNDRIP. These are really hard spaces for the federal government, because they bleed into relationships with jurisdictions that in some cases will go hard in other areas if they do not like what the federal government is doing in relation to this area of indigenous people.