Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
I think everybody has a small PowerPoint that I've prepared, so I'll just go down these six points.
The first point is that accountability appears to be a universal norm of good governance. I have never seen, in any measure of good governance, anyone dispute the notion that accountability should be right up there. Certainly in the aboriginal world, the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples, the National Centre for First Nations Governance, the Harvard Project on American Indian Economic Development in the United States—all of these organizations mention and highlight accountability as a measure of good governance.
Increased transparency, a key ingredient to accountability, is a trend affecting all institutions, and by that I mean in the private sector, in the NGO sector, in the charitable sector, of course, as well as in the public sector.
The second point is that despite heightened attention to accountability, complexities abound in any government in trying to realize sound accountability. One of the problems, and there are several in trying to actually implement good accountability, is essentially trying to have a good accountability story based on results. Accountability used to be focused on propriety—propriety in expenditures of money—but now accountability has clearly moved into the results arena, and that is a much more difficult, much more challenging accountability story to present.
The third point is that this, trying to have a good accountability story, is especially true for first nations, given the highly dysfunctional first nations governance system. This system is a significant barrier to realizing improved levels of well-being in these communities. I won't go into these dysfunctions, but I'm happy to answer any questions about them.
Point four is that achieving governance reform has proved to be an uphill struggle across the world, with one notable exception, at least, which may have relevance for first nations. Again, I won't go into this, but this evidence is really based on the World Bank, which monitored some 200 countries across the world over a 10-year period. Over that time, despite billions of dollars being spent on trying to improve good governance, it concluded that the overall quality of governance in these countries, on average, had not improved. That's over a decade.
Because of this record, and because Bill C-27 is a very modest initiative, expectations about what it might achieve in the way of better governance should be equally modest. Trying to effect good governance is a very difficult undertaking, especially if you're looking for sustainability, and that is clearly the key.
Finally, one important issue, and perhaps the elephant in the room, is own-source revenue. Getting better information on own-source revenue is reason enough to support the bill. The reason I say this is that I think public policy is always better if there is essentially good information. Issues around funding and funding modalities, which are a centre point in most of the relationships with aboriginal peoples and their government, the federal government, often revolve around money, and therefore having some better sense of own-source revenue has to be a good thing, I think.
I'll conclude on that note and pass it to our colleague, Phyllis.