Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  Those are really two different questions. One of the hardest questions in social policy is how you replicate success. It's a question I've thought about often, because the reality often is that a successful social initiative is a result of leadership, somebody being a great inspirational leader and taking risks on the ground and really being capable.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  It's the cycle: low socio-economic status is the best predictor of failure to complete school and get a post-secondary education, which is itself the best indicator of low socio-economic status--and it goes on and on. How you break the cycle of low socio-economic status and low educational attainment are very difficult questions.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  Just quickly, under the slide on page 16, it is even worse, because it's only the population aged 20 to 24, it's not the general population. If you look at the general population, the results are even more discouraging than you would think at first glance. I just want to point that out.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  Do both, I would say. That would be my answer. I know that governments have to make choices, because I've been there. You have to make difficult choices between the things you want to do. You want to do two good things and you can't afford to do them both. In this case, to repeat what I said at the opening, my own argument is that if you have an aboriginal student who's gotten themselves into university, and a bursary or a scholarship could keep them there and help them succeed and get through that tough first year, which is harder now--I failed first year, by the way, not atypical--then let's do it.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  From my perspective, I would place aboriginal educational success above almost any other desirable outcome. It's the key to the success of the aboriginal community in Canada. So anything we can do to improve the educational outcomes would be a higher priority than almost anything I could think of in Canada.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  There are a lot of data limitations, which I go through in the paper. That's why I tell other researchers to prove me wrong, to use some of the micro-data to start looking at these kinds of issues in a lot more detail. This is sort of like the high-level geological survey that says there may be gold here, or there may be diamonds there--now somebody get down on the ground and do some digging.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  That is the question. As to whether you have a higher probability of completing high school if you live off reserve, the answer is yes. But it depends where you live. In Winnipeg and other cities in the west, there's a high proportion of aboriginal students who are not completing high school, as compared to, say, in Toronto, Montreal, or Halifax.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  You're asking me to make the kinds of choices that people get elected to make, and I'm not elected.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  This is a pretty limited piece of research, but it's an important piece of research. It opens up questions. I'm saying to myself and others, here's the situation, how can we explain it? We know that statistically the geographic proximity to a post-secondary educational institution is one of the factors that determines success or failure in the general population.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  You'll be surprised to know that all these data are available free on the Internet through the Statistics Canada website. If you look, you can find it. It's free of charge and it's all aggregate data. I would like researchers to go deeper than I have by looking at what's called micro-data.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  I would have to see the department's data to know. I haven't seen it, but I have seen two studies by Statistics Canada of off-reserve migration, and they both came to the same conclusion that I have. I've not seen the Indian and Northern Affairs Canada study you refer to. I'd be surprised if that's what they said, though, because as far as I know they've never said that in the past.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  The answer is that this research did not look at the reasons for success or failure. Some other work I've done might reflect on that. Anecdotally, my sister taught for 30 years in the inner city in Winnipeg, but this research does not look at reasons. In my paper, I have a policy map of barriers for people, but we know that the drop-out issue starts about grades eight or nine, and that's where we start running into problems, both in the cities and on reserve.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  That's an important question, and it's not one I've looked at, although I've discussed it. I've had a lively discussion with other researchers, and I've been encouraging other researchers to look at this kind of information. I want to say a few things. One is that I've tried to take an objective look at the situation, based on the empirical data.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  It's my pleasure to be here. I know time is short, so I'm going to try to be as quick as possible, and have some opportunity for dialogue. I've passed out a little slide presentation, which is based on a longer report. The longer report, which I highly recommend to you, as the author, is available free on the Caledon Institute website.