Good afternoon to each of you, and welcome back for the second time.
I find some of this pretty remarkable. The government has raised this issue around consultation, and they continue to ask questions of the aboriginal witnesses we have in front of us: What's your view of consultations? How much is enough? Do we have to talk to every aboriginal person out there? My comment might be that at least you should talk to somebody within the aboriginal community, not necessarily everybody.
In terms of timeframes, I find one thing very hypocritical on the part of the government. In order to get an honest and sincere apology around Indian residential schools, we have to wait four to five years for the Truth and Reconciliation Commission to do its work. But in order to implement Bill C-44, we're saying let's do it in six months, without any consultation. So I think there's a double standard, to say the least, when it comes to the government's response.
The government has also held out aboriginal women as the poster child for moving very quickly to pass and to implement Bill C-44. But what I've observed and heard is that aboriginal women have similar, almost identical concerns to the other witnesses we have.
How do the women you represent feel about the approach being taken by government? It almost seems to be a little bit of a divisive strategy, holding out one segment of the population, because human rights run the gamut, not just on gender, but on different circumstances.
So I would just like to know how you feel about that.