Mr. Speaker, the band operating funding formula is the formula that funds on reserve schools. This formula was developed in 1988. I want to quote from the AFNQL:
...has always ignored significant costs, in addition to not having been revised to take account of new developments in education. The formula has not even been indexed to the cost of living since 1996....
It goes on to talk about the fact that in 2003-04 the per student cost in Canada had increased by an average of 24%, which is in excess of the rate of inflation.
The band operating funding formula is an important part of how on reserve schools can manage to deliver an education that would at least have a comparable standard to the rest of the provinces.
We are in December and the bands across the country are still not clear on what they will be operating with come April 1, 2008, and they need to start making commitments into the next fiscal year.
In terms of a post-secondary education strategy, my colleague is absolutely correct. We do not have a broad national strategy around post-secondary education. We know that people do move from coast to coast and we need to be able to, with some comfort, feel that there are standards and strategy across the country to deal with post-secondary education.
We do not have it at the national level to deal with post-secondary education as a whole and we certainly do not have a national post-secondary strategy for first nations, Métis and Inuit.
As I pointed out, this is a lost economic opportunity for Canada that would assist us in dealing with the labour shortage that is before us and would help us in terms of dealing with the aging baby boomers.