Thank you for the question.
What we have identified for CASA.... We represent over 400,000 students. Specifically for this indigenous committee, we asked all of our members what was needed, and the top three things we identified immediately were better housing, better mental health care supports and increased funding.
With the increased funding, we are asking the government and MP Miller to expand the investments in the post-secondary student support program to meet the program demand so that everybody can attend. We're also asking for the eligibility criteria for the program to include more than indigenous students, including Métis students, as well as students from the Northwest Territories, the James Bay and Northern Quebec Agreement and the Northeastern Québec Agreement who reside outside of their territories for more than 12 months. What we are asking for is an increase in funding so that there's more eligibility.
To be indigenous in Canada puts you in a box. You are first nation, Métis or Inuit, and that does not necessarily describe the entire indigenous community in Canada, so we need to be more inclusive in that respect as well.
It's very disheartening when you have somebody in grade 9 who sees a system that doesn't fit them and finds no way or no supports that will move them forward. Quite often, these children—literally, they are children—are suffering their own traumas with their own families and their own addictions. Those are things that are part of that intergenerational cycle of trauma that is perpetuated.
That is also how we need to support our indigenous students in the north. I think it's so much more than what is available. They're working with a curriculum that is based on Alberta, which is south, and that's completely different from how a northern learner should be accessing post-secondary education.
I believe that we need to be focusing on those things and moving forward with more funding.