It's true with any change. There were concerns in the 1950s that we would become citizens of Canada. There were concerns in the 1980s that we shouldn't be part of the constitutional process. We saw it recently with the Idle No More movement, that there shouldn't be any changes or tinkering with the Indian Act.
You have a philosophical divide in the country that leads to a situation where there cannot be a complete overhaul of the Indian Act. Because there's no consensus to get rid of the Indian Act, as the Prime Minister said a couple of years ago, you can't get rid of the tree; its roots are too deep.
That leaves Canada with a dilemma about how to deal with a complete lack of modern institutions for first nations. The only way around that, in my view, is to create optional pieces of legislation so that first nations can make choices on their own and not be forced to do that. Indeed, what we're proposing is just that. It has to be optional legislation. There has to be free and informed consent by the membership of the community, meaning there has to be a vote in order to do it.
Also, one of the concerns first nations have expressed is that we're repeating what happened in the United States through the Dawes Act. This is completely separate. We're not part of the United States, for one, and this is legislation that's being led by first nations.