I expire in 2020, and I don't need this piece of plastic to tell me who I am.
One of the questions I have is this. Who are these 35,000 people who are going to be able to get one of these? What are the benefits to them?
I'm one who looks at the long term, and where we should be going as nations. One of the things we're doing as the indigenous caucus of the Liberal government is looking at nation to nation, and what that will look like in the future. I was the executive director of Grand Council Treaty No. 3—it seems like forever ago—and we were developing our own laws. We had the natural resource law and a citizenship law, and it wasn't some other government or some act that told us who we were. We decided as a people, as a group, based on our cultures and traditions. In all honesty, I was learning because I grew up in the city of Thunder Bay. I grew up away from the culture and away from my people.
The other thing that strikes me while we're sitting here talking about citizenship or status is how ridiculous this conversation is. I was just talking to my colleague. Imagine someone from Norway right now watching us talk about other Canadian citizens governed by an act and fighting to be part of that and not being your own people. We have to move beyond the Indian Act, and I understand what you're saying. Mr. Viersen asked why we need those protections. The answer is because there's a certain class of people, and unfortunately there is a class of people who live in a lot of my first nation communities across my riding, who would suffer if the Indian Act were to disappear. I don't think a lot of Canadians understand that the dependency is so deep. The Indian Act did its job. It destroyed our people.
My first question is this. Who are the 35,000 people who would be helped by getting them under the Indian Act and getting them some of the benefits under the Indian Act? Can you answer that question, or should I be asking someone else that question?