Thank you very much.
Thank you, gentlemen, for appearing today. It is very important testimony, and we appreciate having that on the record.
We've heard a number of witnesses who have raised somewhat similar issues, but I have some questions first for Chief Maracle. Then I would like to talk to Mr. Paul about his very interesting perspective on the various economic developments.
Chief Maracle, you've raised the concern with the regulatory gap, and we've had other witnesses come to testify to that. I'm quite aware of that. In fact, I worked with first nations in Alberta for quite a few years trying to address that gap. You essentially have two options. One is to provide greater powers to the first nations themselves to be able to regulate and enforce proper environmental and sustainable development rules on your lands, or possibly in the interim, which has been discussed by some witnesses, have the federal government finally step up to the plate and enact these long-awaited laws. Unfortunately, the provincial laws don't apply on your lands.
I wonder if you could speak a bit more to your concern. The issue also would be whether or not you had the capacity. If each first nation is going to set about enacting and enforcing its own individual environmental laws or environmental impact assessment laws, could you speak a bit more about that, about what your preference would be? Where would you prefer the government put its attention? Would that be supporting your nation to develop its own environmental sustainable development regime, or would you prefer that the federal government fill that vacuum?