Specifically in relation to the calls to action, there are a number of things that we had hoped to do with Canadian educators and in Canadian educational systems to ensure that there was a distinctions-based approach to the way in which curricula are developed. Unfortunately, jurisdictions aren't very good at going to rights holders all the time. Often, if there's an individual whom they know, perhaps, and who then will happily take that space, curricula are developed with an individual perspective about our peoples, rather than an official perspective from representatives of first nations, Inuit and Métis.
That is not necessarily about children growing up in our communities, but it is about the way Canadians perceive the residential school experience and also the way in which Canadians understand Inuit, first nations and Métis realities.
When it comes to the funding of an education system and specifically to provide more funding and to be more open to increasing educational outcomes and attainments, we still are in that phase of building towards investments and ambitions.
Again, I'll go back to our educational attainment rights. We are over 50% lower in graduating our young students from grade 12 than other Canadians. It is unacceptable, and we need to figure out how to solve this. Yes, this committee conversation is great, but certainly it is a crisis within this country, and there are very strong pedagogical ways in which we can improve existing systems that categorically would give our students a better chance to succeed.
There aren't these mystical problems that we have no solutions for. Give students food to eat. Give them the courses they need to graduate. Allow for culture and language within the curriculum and celebrate that. Allow for that to be the foundation under which they can go out into the rest of the country and pursue further educational attainment. Provide the educational program in our mother tongue. It's not hard, but somehow we've made it impossible.