I think this builds on a couple of other questions where I could not give you an assurance, as accounting officer, that the funds allocated for post-secondary actually are spent on post-secondary education, because they go into block funding agreements. First nations actually have some flexibility to choose what they spend the funds on, and that's deliberate. There's nothing wrong with that, as I say, but it does mean that we cannot trace every dollar through to the end use on students. There are communities receiving dollars for post-secondary education that don't spend them on post-secondary students in exactly the proportion they got them in, if at all. They make tough choices at the community level. I don't intend to be critical in any way.
So, no, we cannot guarantee that those resources end up in the hands of students. I think what the Auditor General underlined, and I would concur with it, is that the current delivery model is problematic. There are 450 points of delivery; it's run through band governments. I'm not being critical of them. They try to do their best and they do wonderful work in many communities to get their students ready, but they're doing all the leg work. There are some very painful choices about which kids are going to get supported each year.
I think there's actually a fair bit of money on the table, which, if it went through a single entity directly to students and their families, would get better results, but that's a very controversial position. Not all first nations groups would agree with that, which goes back to one of the earlier questions. If you want perfect consensus and first nations support for some of these reforms, we might be waiting a while. You're going to have to make decisions as legislators as to how much support is good enough in order to advance.