I think the next step is that we will certainly continue to lobby the bureaucracy, but we also probably hope to get a meeting with Minister O'Regan to talk about our partnership and the fact that, hopefully, he will give his bureaucrats direction to recognize our agreement as a regional education authority.

It's actually a regional educational authority “plus”, and that's the language that is meant for the children of Whitecap, because if they're living in the community, that $1,500 a child should follow them regardless of whether they're going to an off-reserve school that has actual language and cultural programming for our children.

That said, another challenge is the urban first nations, the children who are living in the city How about them? When it comes to their language and culture that was taken away by the residential schools, why is there no investment on their behalf? A lot of our families who live off-reserve are not living off-reserve by choice. It's because there's no housing available on their home reserves, so they're living in the urban centres. Yet there are no culture and language dollars following their children. That's another issue that needs to be addressed.

I think our partnership is going to continue to move forward in a positive way. It's worked to date. I don't see our going in a different direction. I don't see my community members telling me, “Chief, let's pull out of this agreement; it doesn't make any sense.” To date, it's made all kinds of sense. Even the purchasing power of the Saskatoon Public Schools division, whether it be for smart boards or other things—the IT supports, educational psychologists—you name it, all the second-level supports are second to none. Then if our children have any learning disabilities or challenges, if we can't deliver it in Whitecap, because of the large school division we can send our children here. For example, we have one child who has cerebral palsy. She has to go to a school here in Saskatoon that has all the services she needs. It's been a good partnership. But again, we're 20 minutes from a large urban centre.

It works for us. We're not saying this is going to work for anybody else, but certainly, it works for our community. The partnership approach, like I said, stems from a long history between the City of Saskatoon and the Whitecap Dakota nation.

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