Yes, I do. In the last five years, beginning with the federal government's apology on Indian residential schools, and moving towards the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, and then more recently with the coverage of the housing crisis in Attawapiskat, and then this past winter with the widespread attention to the Idle No More movement, I believe there is more and more attention being paid to indigenous issues in Canada than ever before.
I believe that, while it may be messy in the short term, in terms of the debate sometimes being rancorous, sometimes there being a lot of conflict, a lot of partisanship in some cases, in the end most Canadians are decent people, and most Canadians want positive outcomes for both themselves and for their fellow compatriots. In the long run those shared interests will lead us towards a path to get rid of this paternalistic piece of legislation that is currently on the books.
Today if I show the average Canadian a status card and ask them if it makes sense in 2013 to carry a race-based piece of identification around with me, most people will say, “No, that doesn't make sense. That doesn't sound like the Canada I know”.
However, it doesn't immediately follow that we should therefore just remove the Indian Act entirely. As I said in my comments, this piece of legislation has been on the books for a long time. People have made their life choices—where to live, what to do, how to earn a living—based on that existing legislation, so we can't just pull the rug out from under them. Rather, we need a very thorough consultation process, which is going to take their concerns into account, and in so doing, we're going to bring about a piece of legislation, and the ideal legislation in the long run is one that's actually going to last. It's not one that we'd legislate for a year or two, figure out that there are a whole bunch of problems with it, and then have to return to the table and start drafting a replacement for the replacement.
So I think the debate—