First off, there was a considerable amount of consultation that was done in relationship to the building of this law. I want to tell you that I don't know that I would have defined it as co-developed. I'm going to be sincere about that. We didn't even see the bill that was being brought forward, the final draft of the bill. We weren't allowed to see that. We last reviewed a previous draft. Co-development to me would be that we were actually working to develop it together, but really we were responding to what the justice department put forward in the bill. It wasn't us coming up with the pieces of the bill.
We did our best to have as much influence and engagement on those pieces as we could. We are hopeful that this is at least looking at and putting a light on an issue that has been a long-term problem for Métis children and Métis families. We are hopeful that with the work your committee and others are doing on this legislation we will have a piece of legislation that will assist us in ensuring that we change the road on where Métis children and Métis families have been so negatively impacted and affected.
Just to even put it this way, we've had many children die in care. Many of our children, especially among the Métis, because of the issue around whose jurisdiction we fall under has only recently been coming to the forefront.... We've had children identified as unknown aboriginal, so that they've fallen within the cracks of these systems. They haven't been addressed. In some instances—I'm going to tell you that we know this—I've worked with families whose children have died in care and they haven't even been told until months later. They're never told why those children died.
This legislation is going to help us change some of that. It's going to help make accountability come into play, especially if we address some of the issues of who is going to financially resource some of this stuff.
Thank you.