Facts About Aboriginal Funding in Canada – Huffington Post

June 17, 2015

Thinking hard about history can be a useful exercise if incorrect assumptions are formed. This was one goal of the Truth and Reconciliation Committee’s report on residential schools, which, in early June, published a 388-page summary of its forthcoming final report.

Others have already debated some assumptions in the report — healthy, given that history should never be left to past or present politics. Here, I will deal with popular beliefs about funding for First Nations people in Canada — something I have some familiarity with having traced such numbers back to the mid-20th century.

An analysis of the money is critical for four reasons.

First, in some cases, it corrects the record. The committee claims there is currently inequity in education funding for First Nation students on reserve vis-a-vis students in provincial public schools. Wrong. National on-reserve funding per student in the 2010/11 school year amounted to $13,524 compared to $11,646 per student, on average, in provincial public schools across Canada.

Read More: http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/mark-milke/aboriginal-funding-canada_b_7598232.html