Thank you, Madam Chair, and thank you to the presenters today.
First of all, I want to note that it's very refreshing to see many aboriginal people involved at the professional level. The previous presenter who had the floor, Ernie Daniels, is from the Northwest Territories and was a colleague of mine for many years. I see Clayton here presenting and so many aboriginal people taking part in this discussion who are familiar with our history and the challenges we are up against.
As you know, we now have probably the largest number of indigenous MPs in our history. I think we all agree that we have to look at completing the circle. For too long we have been sitting on the outside. The country moved forward, and we sat on the sidelines.
I spent almost seven years as a band manager, so I've seen the challenges that are faced in a community. The band manager's job description does not exist. You do everything and anything that has come in your direction, from loose dogs to people dying in the community who need support. It's very challenging, given the resources.
I took notice of a number of things that were said, including about default prevention. I know for a fact that in the last 10 years we've seen many cuts at the band council and tribal council level, which have almost taken away any ability from decision-makers to deliver any types of programs or services to move forward, other than to keep the lights on. In many cases, somebody had to be laid off, either the chief or the band manager. Even though there's a lot of talk about how much chiefs make, there are still many chiefs who work for no pay at all, and we should recognize that.
If things are going to change, and we are going to complete the circle and talk about reconciliation, we also have to talk about economic reconciliation. That has to be a big part of where we go. I want, therefore, to ask you to talk about how to raise revenues.
We heard from the previous presenters about taxing people, our own membership, a discussion that often takes place in the land claims or self-governance negotiations. However, royalties have not been mentioned as much as I thought they would be, in terms of where we need to go. We have many resources on our lands. When we signed the peace treaties, we didn't expect to give them all away.
Maybe we could talk about that a little bit as a source of funding for our governance, because we need good governance, but we can't get it unless we have money.