Internal document urges government to raise cap on aboriginal education

The federal government's own Aboriginal Affairsdepartment believes it needs to spend more money if aboriginal
children are to have the same kind of education as other kids inCanada, a newly released document suggests.

But such an increase is off the table until the Assembly of FirstNations gets behind the Conservative government's controversial billto reform aboriginal education, according to the department's ownminister, Bernard Valcourt.

Since the mid-to-late 1990s, there has been a two per cent cap onthe amount that spending on aboriginal education can grow each year.

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But an internal document from Aboriginal Affairs and NorthernDevelopment says the cap is too low and needs to be more thandoubled. "For the (kindergarten to Grade 12) education programs tomaintain provincial comparability and NOT draw on other programfunds ... new investments are required, including a 4.5 per centescalator on all K-12 education program funds going forward(starting in 2014/15)," says the document, a slide showpresentation from June 2013.

The 22-page document is among several filed as part of FirstNations advocate Cindy Blackstock's long battleat the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal to get aboriginal children the same fundingfrom the federal government as non-aboriginal kids get from theprovinces.

The document also revealed that Aboriginal Affairs has shiftedhalf a billion dollars meant for infrastructure over a six-yearperiod to try to cover shortfalls in social and education programs.

A spending cap of 4.5 per cent on aboriginal education was partof the Conservatives' proposed legislative reforms. But the bill hasgone nowhere since chiefs from across Canada flatly rejected it this spring.

Their unexpected opposition drew the ire of the Conservativegovernment, which thought it had the support of First Nationsleaders after Shawn Atleo -- then national chief of the Assembly ofFirst Nations -- and other chiefs joined Prime Minister StephenHarper at a reserve in Alberta this past February to announce abreathtaking $1.9 billion in federal money for First Nationseducation.

But that support quickly evaporated.Chiefs from across Canada voted in May to reject the educationreforms, and they demanded a new agreement with First Nations thatprovides transfer payments to aboriginal communities.

Valcourt has said the bill will remain on hold and no new moneywill be spent until the Assembly of First Nations gets behind thelegislation.His office reiterated that position this week.

"Our government is extremely disappointed that the Assembly ofFirst Nations (AFN) did not honour its agreement with thegovernment," the minister's spokeswoman, Erica Meekes, wrote in anemail.

"It was Paul Martin's Liberal government that balanced theirbudget on the back of, among others, First Nations and imposed a twoper cent cap on First Nations' education funding which was neverremoved during the surpluses that followed.

"It was our government that proposed to remove this cap inBudget 2014, however that was contingent on necessary structuralreform."