Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for Nanaimo—Cowichan for her advocacy on behalf of first nations people during her long tenure as the official opposition's senior critic for aboriginal affairs.
The member is right, the joint council process would by no way give first nations control over their education. It would give them an obligation to administer carefully the directives dictated by the minister. The unilateral, discretionary authority of the minister has been enhanced and augmented. It is hard to believe that one could expand on the overwhelming powers that the Minister of Aboriginal Affairs and Northern Development has over first nations people, but the bill does. The bill contemplates an increase in support for first nations students but at the direction and control of the Minister of Aboriginal Affairs and not first nations people, and again, subject to what he is able to wrest from the Minister of Finance in any given year.
The Conservatives' model is not equal funding as it would be for provincial students, and then work backwards. Their model is to seek to achieve equal funding if the Minister of Aboriginal Affairs and Northern Development has enough clout around the cabinet table to divide the pie to provide better resources to first nations people. That is a far cry from the rights-based approach that my colleague for Nanaimo—Cowichan says should be guiding and informing the development of this important public policy.