I'd like to argue that we need an active, interventionist, energetic, supportive attitude from the federal government, always understanding that when there's a dialogue between federal and provincial authorities, there are going to be complications.
I'm going to give you two examples. They're examples of areas in which it would be difficult to solve the problem, but I really think we have to address them. You'll see from the examples why I think that.
There's a transfer of about $65 million per year in education to the provincial government. Sylvia and I were invited to a consultation about a year ago by the deputy minister to talk about how that money would be spent. We walked into the room, a room sort of this size, with this many people on our side of the table, 20 or so. The deputy minister stood up and said, “It is very important that we spend this money effectively. We get $65 million and $40 million is spoken for. Let's talk about the last $25 million.”
What about the $40 million? No, we don't want to talk about it.
They stole $40 million and went and used it for something else, nothing to do with our community, and they more or less admitted it to us in a closed room.
Now they're giving us a chance to have some input on the $25 million, which we didn't used to have, and everybody wanted to have a good day, and they had a good conversation about that. But that's not really right. I'm not saying that that $40 million isn't very well spent on virtuous projects that really do good, but they're not even telling our community what they are.
That's example number one. I should say, in regard to that example, that we know that Madame Joly has taken a much more aggressive attitude towards transparency and accountability in regard to these matters, and they're negotiating new ententes, so the situation may improve, but if she does that, it is an illustration of what we're talking about, going in and solving the problem, understanding the problem and solving it.