Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  That is fine, thank you.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  In terms of the other part of the question, whether we are looking at expanding the eligibility criteria, if I'm understanding the question, of the post-secondary education program to include Métis, I would say we're not. That's not under consideration right now.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  Trades training predominantly comes through the AHRDAs from Human Resources and Social Development Canada, and it's actually been a very successful program. As I mentioned in the data, there is a high percentage of aboriginal—

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  I don't have the data for first nations in particular, other than as a subset, and we'll have to look at that data. But there are very successful AHRDA agreements supporting that kind of training.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  I guess my answer is that we would suspect the $305 million we currently have for post-secondary education is probably insufficient. What we don't know is how much would be.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  That's why we need to work on a management framework, because we need to be able to have the information necessary to be able to do some estimating of what's needed.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  Thank you. You have asked several questions; I will try to answer them. First of all, I would like to talk about success stories. According to Mr. Mendelson's studies, Aboriginals who undertake post-secondary studies succeed just as well as non-Aboriginals. The difference in rate is because of the fact that in terms of percentage, there are fewer Aboriginals who attend post-secondary institutions.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  The data we need right now are not those necessary to forecast needs. Right now, we have information on spending, but we don't have any on the number of students whose request regarding post-secondary education could not be accepted by the committee. As I mentioned, there is a lack of data in this regard.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  Could I answer there? I think the only reason it wouldn't be spent is where, as I discussed earlier, one of the problems is getting enough kids graduating out of grade 12. In order to know how much you're going to need on post-secondary, you actually have to have some students who are going to be able to be admitted into post-secondary institutions.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  We believe there probably is insufficient money, and the value of that money over time, as you suggested, is declining because costs are going up.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  In terms of Bill C-48, it's our understanding that there's a $1 billion, one-time, post-secondary education infrastructure trust fund to provide supplementary funding to the provinces and territories. I'm not an expert in this regard, and we could find more information for you on that program, if you would like, but this money is to go to the provinces and territories.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  Am I out of time?

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  We cannot guarantee you that any particular item will appear in the budget. That is beyond our control. However, one thing is for sure: we are currently working on policy renewal. We also have to see to it that the way in which the program is managed is improved, in response to the Auditor General's findings.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  Yes.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  In fact, to determine how much money we need, we have to know what the demand is. For the time being, the information we have is inaccurate. So we cannot say whether we need double $300 million or how much is available to us. We will have to get that information before we can forecast the needs.