Public Accounts committee  I'll defer to my colleague from CMHC on that one, if it's all right.

Public Accounts committee  It's both. If anybody ever tells you that Canada is an aging society, you will say yes. But there's a large young aboriginal population within the country, especially in some parts of the country. The median age is 25, that is, half of them are under 25 years of age. We know they're there, because they are already on my registry, and they are either an enormous opportunity for the country for dealing with some of the demographic and labour shortage issues or they are going to be a time bomb for our cities and our social conditions.

Public Accounts committee  Is the question about elementary and secondary education only or also about post-secondary education?

Public Accounts committee  At the moment, elementary and secondary education are being discussed more. It is how tripartite tables are designed. We have direct discussions with a number of aboriginal groups, including the Assembly of First Nations of Quebec and Labrador. We try to develop mechanisms in order to establish standards.

Public Accounts committee  There is no disagreement. One of the really important parts of the Auditor General's report is that it shows there are four winning conditions or missing conditions. The combination of those is what's likely to result in enduring change. You could pick any one of them, such as legislation without funding, or funding without legislation, and so on.

Public Accounts committee  Yes, and again it is about bringing people together around these kinds of three-cornered architectures with the province. The institution you're discussing has a long history. I know you're probably more familiar with it than I am. It has been a bit of a pitfall. Normally the federal government is not directly involved in the operating costs of the post-secondary institutions; that's just generally not what we do.

Public Accounts committee  I appreciate the question. I'd be happy to take this up with the other committee. There are about seven issues in there, at least. If you would bear with me, Mr. Chairman, I will try to pick it apart as best I can. Government is not moving to fee simple land on reserve. That's not on the agenda.

Public Accounts committee  Thank you for the question. I'll try not to go through all of the details but just give the committee a feel for how much momentum has been established since the early days of this effort in 2006. We have province-wide tripartite agreements in education with British Columbia, Alberta, Manitoba, New Brunswick, and P.E.I..

Public Accounts committee  The short answer is no. The longer answer is that there are a variety of tools that can get you out of parts of the Indian Act, for a variety of purposes. One of the things that's most important to first nations is to have control over land management and resources, the kinds of things a municipal government would do, that is, local land management decisions.

Public Accounts committee  If I understand the language, I think it means not being entirely literal about the text of the agreement and what the lawyers will tell you is the narrow obligation, but to look at what the aspirations were at the time the self-government agreement or treaty was reached. They're often about greater local decision-making.

Public Accounts committee  Perhaps I could start the ball rolling. It's very unlikely provinces will get involved in building houses on reserves. That's a legitimate point of view. That's something the federal government should be doing with local governments and first nations housing authorities. Where provinces have been extremely helpful is in bringing utilities and services like water, electricity, and broadband to the reserve boundary and helping create infrastructure for the communities.

Public Accounts committee  Thank you for the question. It's a very interesting question because I think we were rightly criticized as a government and as the public service for not paying enough attention to implementation once the ceremony announcing the treaty had finished and the lights were off and the TV cameras were gone.

Public Accounts committee  We had started to give this a lot more attention I think based on some specific reports that the office had done around the Inuvialuit agreement, but also based on some advice we got from the Senate committee on Aboriginal peoples and certainly on representations we had from the Land Claims Agreements Coalition.

Public Accounts committee  An example might be a commitment to a land transfer and the land was held by one of the other federal departments. That's one we talked about in the Inuvialuit context. We sometimes have to chase the other department to finish the transaction and get the land into the hands of the group.

Public Accounts committee  I think there are other pieces of the progress made that are outside the architecture of the Kelowna accord we've been discussing, sort of provincial-like services on reserve. One, I would say, would be the promotion of economies in aboriginal communities and economic participation, and the other would be the settling of land claims and outstanding grievances from the past.