Madam Speaker, I am very pleased that my hon. colleague asked this question. It gives me an opportunity to share some information with him that he or some of the young people he spoke about may not be aware of.
For three years, ending in 1999, we have invested $200 million for a labour market training program called the regional bilateral agreements which were done under national frameworks. All the labour market development programs have gone to the provinces or territories except in the case of First Nations, Inuit and Metis. We did framework agreements with them and then struck regional bilateral agreements so that money could flow to the people from those boards that are designated by those people who make those decisions. An amount of money has been out there and it is a lot of money.
I was involved with the negotiations in B.C. We cannot guarantee that every single individual who wants to be served at a certain level will be served because we have removed that responsibility from ourselves.
Post-secondary education is an issue that has, I believe, some crossover. There have been some sponsorships. In fact, the Metis from Ontario took some of this money and did a scholarship program with their partners so there was a lot of leveraging going on.
Further to that, we have just built what we call the aboriginal human resources development strategy. It will be funded to a higher amount, I believe, than the current arrangement. However, as soon as this one ends in 1999 another one kicks in for another five years. It does not quite meet what the royal commission wanted which was 10 years but we did not feel we could do that so we did it for an additional 5 years. There will be more money there than there was previously. It will be for training in labour market development. This is not necessarily post-secondary education but it does not necessarily exclude that either.
The national association of friendship centres get their core funding from heritage, so I cannot speak to that. Because the centres were not under the $200 million, we set aside a separate provision of $26 million under which the friendship centres benefited.
They were the beneficiaries. I cannot remember their exact amount but they are beneficiaries under the $26 million and I am not sure how they spend that money but that is entirely within their purview on setting their priorities and what they should do.
There is a cry about core funding but that is not something that I have the responsibility for or can speak to.