Thank you for the question.
You're right. This fiscal policy is being imposed. We have not accepted it because of the language in our agreement. How is it going to affect us if it goes forward? We will have no choice but to defend our agreements. That means going back to court, because that's not what the provisions in our agreements say. Our agreements say “shall negotiate”. If you impose something on us, that's not negotiation. I think that what they want to do brings us back to being glorified Indian Act bands again, with a plus. We would not be independent, self-governing first nations trying to look after our communities and our citizens.
Also, in the agreements we have the language defining our citizenship. It was our citizens who voted on those agreements. If we go back to this policy, it speaks to status Indians. Not all of our citizens are status Indians, but we are still responsible as first nation governments to provide programs and services for the whole of our citizenship.
As an example, my first nation is Ta'an Kwäch'än Council. It is a self-governing first nation. We have 432 citizens, I believe. Right now, though our negotiations, we get funding for 212 people, but we have to provide 100% of the programs and services to our citizens. Otherwise, we're discriminating against our citizens, and then you have two classes of people. You have the haves and have nots, and that's not appropriate. As indigenous people, that's not how we treat our people. We're all equal.