Mr. Speaker, I would encourage the members opposite to understand that taking a provincial approach in terms of a provincial minister of education and applying it to the Minister of Aboriginal Affairs and Northern Development and the first nations of this country is totally inappropriate.
What we are asking for in this bill is for first nations to have control over first nations education. Comparing this new federal minister of education with the provincial minister is even more irritating and shows that the government does not get it. This bill would not give first nations control of their education.
Many people feel that the language in this bill is even more prescriptive than in the Indian Act and that the minister is actually taking all kinds of powers for himself. Even the chair of the committee is not a first nations appointee.
This just will not work. The minister thinks that he is the minister of education, and that is where the problem begins and ends.