Very little of it is actually staying in the department. The overwhelming amount of money that you allocate and appropriate to the departments goes out as transfer payments to first nations communities, tribal councils and other entities and service agencies. You will find this in GC InfoBase, under grants and contributions.
A contribution agreement says, “Here is some money—report what you did with it.” The overreliance on contribution agreements is something that previous auditors general and public accounts committees have commented on and criticized. The only real way to get data and change outcomes is to put a lot of conditions into contribution agreements. That's one of the things Sheila Fraser means by not having a legislative base.
You'll be familiar with other programs, such as old age pension, unemployment insurance, student loans and so on, where eligibility and formula are defined in statute and legislative language. There's almost none of that in the first nations world. I spent a lot of time working on first nations education legislation. Sadly, we still don't have any. We now have first nations child and family services legislation, but it's needed in other areas.
As I said, I think you're pedalling into the wind of a rising population and rising costs. The cost of salaries for teachers and what you have to pay local school boards as tuition for first nations kids who go to school off reserve.... All of the costs are rising, and the population is rising, so the money is always going to be chasing outcomes.