There is a sort of assumption that because this is a government-to-government relationship, each of the governments—that is, the first nations—should be allowed to essentially decide on what kinds of accountability relationships and that sort of thing. I think there are some really interesting differences, though, between a relationship between the federal government and the provinces, say, and between the federal government and first nations.
Even when you look at the relationship between the federal government and the provinces, there are certain grant-like transfers—health, equalization payments, and that sort of thing—but there are also contribution arrangements between these governments, which do have conditions and reporting requirements that the federal government imposes on the provincial governments. It's not all just simply a transfer of money and there you go.
The second point, I think, with this government-to-government relationship is that you have probably somewhere between 80% and 90% of first nations funds coming from the federal government. If you look at the provinces, you see that it's probably something like 80% coming from their own-source revenues. So it's quite a different thing when problems arise, in that the Minister of Aboriginal Affairs is the one taking the risks, in a sense, because the media immediately turns it to his attention and says, “Look what federal funds are doing: they're creating this mess.”
It's quite different in terms of the relationship here, because when the provinces muck up, it's not the federal government that's usually on the hook; it's the provincial minister. It is quite the reverse in this situation.