I'll start of by saying that in terms of going forward, we as auditors tend to look backwards. We can talk about what actually happened from things that didn't go well that could be improved.
When we talk about measuring well-being—the Community Well-Being Index—we recognize that it has certain components but is not a comprehensive measure. The department has known that for many years.
The other component is that despite knowing this, until the most recent initiatives—we're talking about a period of 18 years—there hasn't been any attempt to make it more comprehensive or to come up with another index that's more comprehensive. Also, as we stated in the report, there wasn't in the index any real, meaningful engagement with the first nations to develop the index. I'm glad to hear, then, that going forward they are engaging, so that both sides know what should be included and how it's going to be used.
With respect to education, the department 20 years ago basically committed to reporting on the education gap and how it was closing. They've never done that. We used their own data to show what you can see on the graph on exhibit 5.1: that in fact the gap had widened over those years. Again, this is information that the department had.
From our point of view, we try to demonstrate in the report how they can use the information going forward. I think they are using it, but time will tell whether they're successful.