The television ads about participation, citizenship and the right to vote don't work. The Elections Canada ads are certainly cute, but you have to reach out to people. You have to go and meet them. For us, getting people involved so they can be part of the change is important.
We continue to give workshops in which we explain the Indian Act and how it works. Today, I was explaining what this committee and the voting system are about, and I asked the people what they thought. There's an election every four years, but nothing seems to happen between elections. We need to show that something happens between each election.
More and more indigenous candidates are interested in the voting process, or in running. That's because something happened between the two elections. There was interest, and people decided they wanted to be part of the change as well. Roméo Saganash is a good example of this. He wanted to be part of the change. That's why it's important to us. I continue to say that we must go out into the field—into the communities—and reach out to indigenous organizations such as Friendship Centres. We could go to the voting places too.
It's not enough to invite people to get involved, because they will often say they feel a lack of connection to the process, since it's only about non-indigenous people. Indigenous people need to feel they have a stake. This means we must raise awareness. That must start right away. In my view, it's very important.