Thank you.
I think wherever first nations are agreeing to and driving those initiatives and those agreements, they are most welcome.
There are outstanding issues of the relationships. Jordan's Principle was mentioned earlier, recalling a child who in fact died because of the lack of clarity about how the jurisdictions are going to--and should be--working together and supporting one another.
I begin, though, again by going back to the original point; that the principal relationship is one, firstly, between first nations and the crown. That's the reason for pursuing a first nations-crown gathering: to have a meeting with the federal government and to reset the relationship there.
The second point, and maybe the next step, would be then to consider the relationship among first nations, the crown, and provincial and/or territorial governments, but only as driven by first nations. What first nations are not welcoming of is the imposition of an approach. That includes the imposition of tripartite arrangements. Those areas in which first nations are choosing, though, we can see quite clearly in the examples you've described.
Great progress has been made, and it allows for the opportunity to address what the relationship is between the different jurisdictions. The principal relationship between first nations is with the crown on the education piece; we need to work that out. But then the next step would be what the relationship is between a provincial education system and.... It may not be a tripartite arrangement, but wouldn't any of us want to make sure that our children, if we choose to leave jurisdictions, would have equitable support for their education success if they were to move between a provincial and a first nations school?
Those are the sorts of practical issues that need to be worked out. But my interest is to reflect the fact that there is a basic foundational first nations-federal crown relationship that we need to address. Then the next step is to look to the first nations for instructions about how they see the next piece of this being worked out.
It's not to suggest that one size fits all or that only a single tripartite model should be implemented and/or imposed, but to suggest that we should be open to the idea that we first reset the first nations-federal crown relationship, and then ask the question about what the relationship is across the whole policy spectrum. In every area we can then ask what the relationship piece is that needs to be addressed with the provincial level as well.
