Thank you to the presenters today. I'm watching this very closely as it moves forward.
I grew up in a small community. I still live in a small aboriginal community. I watch government classifications divide our community, cause rifts within our families, with political organizations. I'm very familiar with this. I am Métis. My wife is Dene, or what everybody in other parts of Canada call Inuit, but we call the people in the territories Dene. My children sometimes use the term Dene to describe themselves, or Métis, whatever seems to best fit best the occasion.
I've always been curious of the challenges with opening the doors for people to gain status. Lately I'm watching with interest because I keep hearing push-back against this bill, against certain areas. It seems that the Government of Canada is nervous about how many people we're going to bring in. First nations are nervous about how many people they're going to see come to the communities. Sometimes I think are they worried about having too many Indians, or is it because there's not enough funding to accommodate everybody?
The Métis, thankfully, are moving toward self-governance for almost every tribe, who have opened their doors to people who do not have status, so the Métis are included. We work as partners. I don't think the issue is going to be as big as it is in some areas.
In the proposal we're looking at, and what you've talked about in terms of stage two, we may take the 18 months and consult, but the results may be the same in the end. Is there some consideration that we may be back in this very situation in 20 months or so? What do we do then?