Mr. Speaker, I thank my hon. colleague for paying such close attention to my speech.
The member makes two very excellent points. On the first one, regarding Big Brothers Big Sisters, I appreciate her offer to go back and do a little bit of investigating to see where that program stands and to see if in fact what she has stated is the case.
However, I do want to make note of something she mentioned about Big Brothers Big Sisters. In my riding of St. Catharines, Big Brothers Big Sisters do great work. One of the many positive components of the Canada summer job programs for students is that, maybe in the member's riding but certainly in my riding, young people are participating in the program, and Big Brothers Big Sisters was one of the programs that benefited in my community. I anticipate that across the province and across the country that is also the case, showing clearly that this government shows support for Big Brothers Big Sisters. However, I take her point and certainly will look into it.
I will comment briefing on adult literacy. I certainly share her point, her goal and her feelings about adult literacy. It is very important in terms of adults who do not have or have not had the opportunity to learn. However, in terms of funding, we have addressed those issues, maybe not in the program that she formerly stated but let me just show from budget 2006 that we invested an additional $350 million per year in aboriginal funding for education.
We also made sure that within that there was a priority that additional funds, which did not exist in any previous budgets, would certainly be there to try to address those issues of youth and ensuring that our young people, certainly aboriginal young people, have the opportunity to learn to read and write, but at the same time also ensuring that the help is there for aboriginal adults who need it. It was there in 2006 and obviously it is there in 2007 as well.