Mr. Lessard, with all due respect to your committee, the people who should be listening are unfortunately not listening. I find that really regrettable, not to say frustrating and shocking. That is why I said at the outset that I am tired of making presentations before standing committees and parliamentary commissions. We give the same speech each time.
In 1992, a commission was established such as we had never seen before. It made more than 400 recommendations to improve the situation in our communities. One of the major recommendations was that the budget of the Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development at the time should be indexed to about $1.5 billion. Extend that over the next 20 years and perhaps we may see some changes in our communities. Solving a number of our concerns will require concrete steps, ranging from the UN Declaration on the Rights of Aboriginal Peoples to local land claims.
My own nation has been sitting at a negotiating table for 35 years now and there is no sign on the horizon of a short-term or medium-term solution. Our communities are doing well in this situation in spite of everything, so I feel that we have no other choice but to respect the political process. At the same time, we have to be consistent and we have to take care of the needs expressed by our community. Otherwise, the community will say that the political process is really not producing any results, because the fundamental situation has not changed.