Thank you.
Maybe what I could do is address broadly the things we've done and some of the direction we have, and then, if you like, address more specifics around the First Nations Fiscal Management Act. We can go through those as well.
I think the appropriate way to think about this question is to put it in the context of our government's direction and what we're trying to do in terms of our overall dealing with indigenous peoples. That's first nations, Inuit and the Métis nation across the country, including in the north.
Our goal, of course, is to deal with more immediate and pressing challenges that we must get at, things that are just unacceptable in this day and age—the challenges around clean water, infrastructure and education that exist in parts of our country and that are frankly unacceptable—but also to make sure that we get to fiscal arrangements that allow for longer-term self-government in places where that can and should go forward.
That's the broader agenda. Much of what you've seen us work on, of course, in the first two budgets—budgets 2016 and 2017—was identifying funding for dealing with those immediate and critical issues. We don't want to have another generation of people who don't find themselves with the opportunities that they should have in a country as rich and as successful as Canada.
What I've been working on during the course of that time, together with my colleagues, has been to think about those longer-term institutions, about how we can actually get at better fiscal management for the long term. That means thinking about what we do both in terms of legislative priorities and in terms of practices.
In terms of the practices we've taken on in our budget approach—this budget was no different, and certainly I've already started it in budget 2019—it is to actually get together with first nations in advance of considering what we would be putting in a budget, to make sure that we understand and consider the important imperatives for indigenous peoples, both in the short term and in the long term. As recently as yesterday, I was meeting with Inuit leaders to talk about their budget priorities for 2019.
This is an ongoing and important issue. I recognize that the issues in the north are not all exactly the same, given the different governance and leadership structures. This is something that, as you know, we're trying to work toward: making an important difference and thinking about how best to get funding to places where the funding goes through the provincial governments as opposed to directly through the first nations groups. That, I think, is work that we need to continue working on.
In terms of the First Nations Fiscal Management Act, in this budget we think it's something that will enable us to continue moving forward on our process for enabling self-government. I'd be happy to hear your views on that, either here or outside the room, to make sure that we're making the progress we're trying to achieve.