Thank you very much, Chair, and thank you to the witnesses for appearing.
I want to continue on the theme that we were on, basically focusing on the $305 million announced to help indigenous communities during the pandemic.
This was announced on March 18. On March 20, Minister Miller announced the details of how that $305 million fund will be divided and worked out. As I understand it, of that $305 million, $215 million is allocated for the Assembly of First Nations members, specifically the 334,000-plus first nations individuals living on reserve; $45 million is for Inuit, available to the 47,000-plus living in four Inuit homeland regions; we also have $30 million allocated for the Métis National Council communities and their 42,000 members in Ontario, Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Alberta and British Columbia.
Now, that leaves about $15 million for almost 643,000 first nations individuals living off reserve, over half a million Métis not affiliated with MNC, and almost 18,000 Inuit outside of the four ITK regions.
Now, some of you have already publicly raised concerns this week about that funding formula. My question to the panel is this. If you have concerns—not as representatives of your individual organizations, if you don't want to, but just as indigenous people—given that there are vast swaths of first nations, Inuit and Métis people being left out of this formula, is there any message any of you have to the government to address this?