Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  Again, for me the timeframe is of grave concern here. We are only here, as I said in the beginning of my opening statement, to enhance this and to work with everyone to strengthen this. But again, I stress I do have a concern with the timeframes and the time of the year when this is all coming out.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  It's the government's job to consult, not ours.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  Yes.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  We don't have the mandate to speak to that today.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  I think we might have had more recommendations that we had worked on with our members. I don't want to go back to the AFN and the timeframes in December. For all governments, even ours—we're a government—that's Christmastime. Nobody's going to be sitting in any house at Christmastime.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  Again, I would pose that to my chief, the Grand Chief John Beaucage, but we certainly did consult with our leadership from where the grand chief has taken it. But to your question about consultation, no.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  For me, the quick answer to that is that we have to move forward. I know our leadership is concerned that it has been outstanding too long. I know we've been waiting years and years in my own community. So we have to move forward, and I hope we can all do it collectively. That's why I appreciate the time we were given here today to enhance and support the bill.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  I don't want to speak on behalf of the grand chief, but I'm assuming the grand chief did. On behalf of and with the support of our nation, he asked me to be here today because, again, today we're meeting as a nation in Garden River First Nation, and he was required to be there.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  No.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  Yes.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  Yes. That's a big question. I'll try to answer as best I can. First, if I can, I want to go back to the panel, the one panel. We are not asking for our first nation members to specifically be included on that panel. It's just to have different ideas by having more than one person make the decisions there.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  Just seeing a panel of more than one, we feel that we want different ideas and individuals who know who we are, where we come from, and how we do business, versus having one person doing the decision-making, especially on this topic. This comes from consultations with our leadership--the 42 member chiefs who we're here on behalf of.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  Yes.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. We appreciate being given the time to speak to you today. My name is Glen Hare. I'm from the M’Chigeeng First Nation. That's on God's country, Manitoulin Island. I'm also a former chief of our community--for 14 consecutive years--and I've had three terms as councillor.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  That's good to know; I have five minutes.