Thank you for your question.
When I consider that the provincial and federal governments have both made commitments to fulfill reconciliation, to implement the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, this to me is that evolution. We must not wait for the great big silver horse to come riding in with reconciliation in tow. We must find opportunities that present themselves to begin to implement meaningfully what that co-governance and shared decision-making can look like.
I think if we do this when opportunities arise, we are going to be able to demonstrate to Canadians that there is nothing to fear about first nations being in a consent-based, shared decision-making model, and that we can and, by and large, have fought to protect the environment and to have stronger environmental considerations in a wide range of different industries.
I believe that the global community is now crying out for and demanding greater environmental protection. In terms of salmon, this is an opportunity where, if the Government of Canada and the provinces were to implement this by creating some measure of roles within their system to engage with first nations—someone who has the respect and knowledge—this would facilitate the discussion. When you're talking about 203 first nations, you're talking about a lot of leadership, lots of different local concerns, but the global concern can be incorporated within the federal and provincial governments with some measure of first nation advisory roles.