Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The Education Act, as proposed, allows the student and the parents to work out an arrangement where students can receive educational programs that respond to their needs. If there are problems in schools, the Education Act, as proposed, allows the parents to come to agreement with the schools, whether the programs will be delivered through home schooling or through correspondence. Whatever options are available, those can be done. It can be done to the extent that part of the programming can be delivered at school and part at home. That's really up to the parents, the students, and the district education authority. These things can be worked out under the proposed legislation.

The other thing that is important, though, is that this particular section deals with the matter that most of the Members have argued, and that is: we cannot allow students not to be required to go to school, even to the extent of laying out an educational program to respond to them. This can't be done without us knowing who the students are, or even who those with special needs are, unless we know the program requirements. That's what we're trying to address here.

The other thing is, this is permissive and, hopefully, the local education authority to which we are now giving this power, will put in place the necessary regulations so they respond to the people they're serving, and not the department coming in and enforcing regulations or authorities or dictating the terms of their participation in the school. So we don't want to do that any more. We want the communities to determine that, and my colleague knows, again, of all the arguments that our aboriginal communities have argued on in this area, that they want to say what the rules are and we are trying to be supportive of that.