Thank you.
I'd like to begin by acknowledging that we're meeting on the traditional territory of the Algonquin Nation. I am visiting this territory from where my home is, which is on the Coast Salish people's land, specifically the Kwantlen Nation, Katzie Nation, and Semiahmoo Nation, which are just down the valley from Chief Crey's traditional territory.
Welcome, everyone. It has been a very insightful panel, and I think you've done a wonderful job at outlining the complexity and the need for us to try to get right in this legislation the relationship in how we work with the indigenous communities across Canada on assessment of projects.
There were three areas that I was really delighted to hear each of you touch on. These three areas I want to explore are reconciliation, consent, and jurisdiction. In the six minutes that we have, we're not going to get into it, so if anyone has any additional thoughts from the brief discussion we'll have, and if you have any additional thoughts beyond the comments you've given, please feel free to send in any submissions to the committee.
The first area I'd like to talk about is how the impact assessment act specifically, or any of Bill C-69, could incorporate free, prior, and informed consent, which has been discussed, in a manner that could work in practice, given the large number of impacted communities on any project.
Chief Boucher, I heard you speak at the GLOBE conference. You talked about the work your community is involved in with the oil sands and moving that product through pipelines, and what we're seeing with Trans Mountain, which, as Chief Crey has said, involves many nations. I am interested in some brief thoughts about this question of free, prior, and informed consent, and how we do that when we have a large number of communities involved.
Mr. Dickson, would you like to start, and then we'll move to Chief Boucher.