Mr. Speaker, it is always good to hear from one of Parliament's great storytellers. Unfortunately, a lot of his analysis of the bill was fiction when it comes to his conspiracy theories about the sinister plot of the minister to wrest control away from first nations by giving them more control, by denying them funding, by giving them more funding. He described as miserly the $1.55 billion per year that the government provides in funding, as well as the $1.9-billion increase that was proposed in the last budget, which, of course, he voted against.
Perhaps that is the reason why the member for Western Arctic, who has not been given an opportunity by his party to participate, mentioned in his question yesterday that he thought if every reserve in Canada, of which there are 600, got a new school, in his estimation, $50 million to $100 million per school would be needed. Therefore, according to the NDP, just $60 billion would do the job and meet the obligations.
The member for Western Arctic was the deputy critic for aboriginal affairs until very recently.
I would ask the member, is $60 billion what the NDP is proposing, or is that miserly as well?