Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Good morning to each and every one of you. Thank you for coming.
I know a little of Chief Paul, being from the Atlantic. I never thought you were batting zero on anything, to be quite honest. I've often heard about your many accomplishments in Nova Scotia.
Building a little bit on what Tina was saying and on some of what you have said to the committee, if you use examples like housing and water and some of these other service-type provisions that one should have, wouldn't the impact be more dramatic on communities that have less capacity in terms of some first nations? That must be a double punch for some communities. The poorer communities, or the ones that are more challenged, would be more severely impacted. There's an assumption that all first nations seem to be at the same stratum, which is just not the case.
Take, for instance, the Innu. The Mushuau Innu and the Sheshatshiu Innu in Labrador are just two new first nations. In fact, its only been months in terms of the formation of the Sheshatshiu first nation. So they're going through a whole implementation of the Indian Act, and now they've had this foisted on them in six months.
Could you comment on how this would exist? This might just exasperate. We've talked about the Pikangikum here at this committee, and we've talked about the Kashechewan, for instance, two particular communities that have been highlighted in the media.
Can you pass some comment on that, Chief Paul?