Mr. Speaker, yesterday in this House, the Minister of Indian Affairs recognized the problem of band councils overestimating Native populations. These figures are then used to set the amount of federal subsidies. According to La Presse , this overestimation may cost over $1.2 billion in expenditures for non-existent Natives.
My question to the minister is this: Given the drastic state of the federal government's finances, does the Minister of Indian Affairs undertake today to ensure that Statistics Canada census takers will have access to aboriginal lands so that these populations can be counted accurately?