Thank you.
I believe the report's diagnosis reveals a problem regarding clarification of roles and responsibilities. Our first role is a funding role. All the tools we apply in the context of the services we are concerned about today are the funding agreements. So we provide funding to the government of a first nation, which must use that funding to offer certain services to its members. The reports the first nations governments must submit to us are the only parliamentary accountability mechanism. We're talking about the problem, about the burden that this report constitutes, but it's necessary because there is no other mechanism. I don't have the exact text to hand, but the report states the following.
We over-rely on contribution agreements, so that is a big limitation. We do what we can with funding agreements, but we do not deliver very many services directly to first nations. We do register land, we register people, we negotiate at the table on land claims, but what we're generally doing is financing a first nations government or first nations institution, and they're doing the best they can in the context they have.
There's a problem of scale. Most of those governments are very small.