Thank you.
I do. I think the 2009 Federal Framework for Aboriginal Economic Development was an important first step. I think what it didn't do is focus on communities and nations, and their abilities to develop economies. The joint action plan agreed to by the Prime Minister and the national chief has a part looking at a task force to unlock first nations economies.
It's not simply a typical economic development argument when you have a resource and access to market, and you need to provide equity to leverage that and there may be political deals depending on where it has to go in the world. First nations are a rights-bearing community. For far too long, first nations have gone to court to determine and have their rights affirmed. We see concepts like the duty to consult. We're seeing first nations have legal title and then challenging the ability to develop that.
We're in this challenge right now, where we have certainly economic potential, but also communities wanting to protect their rights to, and interests in, their lands. If we just reflect briefly on Attawapiskat and all those diamonds so close to it being mined out of their communities, what is the resource and what is the connection with the community? How are those billions helping to support what's happening just down the road? What can we learn from that?
I think we have a lot of work to do together and I think we're starting that work. The missing point simply isn't a federal government program that is going to enable access to individual economic opportunities; I think it's about group and nation economic opportunities. How do we reconcile rights with the use and extraction of those resources? I think we're developing and beginning that conversation together, but it's going to take some time for the task force to do its work and then for us to come together and find ways of enabling that through these federal programs that are less focused on the individual and more focused on the community.