Thank you, Mr. Battiste.
I also want to thank the committee for the report and the recommendations. It was a very good report, and I look forward to being able to provide you with a response in the near future.
One thing we heard loud and clear throughout a lot of this, and through your report, was that we needed increased communication between the department—me—commercial harvesters and the first nations. We have set up tables to make sure that happens.
We have made progress on having information available to harvesters with regard to first nations' rights and what they mean and what it looks like. We have seen a great uptake from the commercial sector with regard to the information sessions we have put out and the workshops we put in place, but we know there's more work to do.
This has been a long-standing issue, as you well know. It's not one that we will solve overnight, but we are committed to making sure that we are listening. We are doing everything we possibly can to make sure that the concerns we have heard are addressed.