Why Attawapiskat can't get a real school

NEWS RELEASE

NEW DEMOCRATIC PARTY

************************** No budget plan for schools at INAC: PBO report

Report also shows gap of $170M per year in education spending

OTTAWA - The Parliamentary Budget Officer’s report released yesterday reveals that education spending at the Department of Indian and Northern Affairs Canada (INAC) is in complete disarray.

The report, commissioned last June by New Democrat Charlie Angus (Timmins-James Bay), reveals that construction of new schools has virtually come to a halt under Minister Chuck Strahl’s watch.

“This report clearly lays out the problems that First Nations communities have been facing for years,” Angus said. “There’s no plan of action, no criteria for needs-based funding, no set of data to support decision making – it’s a complete farce. It’s no wonder that a community like Attawapiskat is still without a real school three decades after a toxic spill poisoned their elementary facility.”

According to the PBO’s report, INAC “does not have a capital budgeting methodology” when it comes to spending on educational infrastructure, capital expenditure at INAC is at least $170M short each year and the department has transferred $120M away from education spending to other areas without parliamentary approval.

Angus asked the PBO to look at how educational spending decisions were made at INAC, following the government’s seemingly inexplicable decision to walk away on a commitment to build a school for the children of the isolated James Bay Coast reserve of Attawapiskat.

"When the government claimed Attawapiskat wasn't on their ‘list’ of priorities, they failed to tell Canadians that there was no list at all,” Angus said. “INAC has been starving First Nations of education dollars for years, and this report shows us how they have been able to do it.”

Key findings in the report:

- $122M was reallocated from school projects and spent on other areas from 2003 to 2008.

- INAC built an average of 35 schools per year in the 1990s, but built just eight in 2007 and 2008.

- Less than half the schools in Canada are listed in "good" condition.

- INAC's data on First Nations schools is inadequate for proper planning and accounting purposes.

- $169-189 million per year gap exists for maintaining current education infrastructure.

Angus says the parliamentary budget officer has not only shown what is wrong with INAC’s funding procedures; he has shown how to make it right.

The report, which was subject to extensive peer reviewed, provides recommendations that could help transform the issue of first nation school funding.

"I am hoping Minister Strahl will embrace the recommendations of this report,” said New Democratic Aboriginal Affairs critic Jean Crowder (Nanaimo-Cowichan). “It provides the government with a clear standard of how school assets must be managed if we are going to move beyond random and haphazard planning. The PBO has provided a road map. The only thing missing now is the political will to follow it."

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