I would say that, along with languages, culture, traditional systems of decision-making, and governance, more and more the discussions around revitalizing traditional systems of indigenous law and understanding those systems are definitely at the heart of a lot of the conversations that we are having, across the country at various tables. We are looking at different concepts around self-determination and how different communities are seeing that, as well as self-government.
There's certainly work going on in different parts of the country that is looking at some of it. What I try to get to is, our agreements that we enter into with indigenous governments and nations really should be seen as bridges between their indigenous perspective, culture, language, systems of governance, decision-making, and law, and Canada's, at the federal level.
If we're going to have agreements that truly work as bridges between these systems, then it's important that we take the necessary steps to help indigenous communities and nations that have to overcome the 150-plus years of colonialism to actually understand what those concepts mean for them in today's world.
There are many who do. I don't want to suggest, in any way, shape, or form, that no indigenous nation actually understands those things. Many understand in profound ways, but many are struggling to recapture a lot of things that have been lost, damaged, and harmed through the legacies of assimilative practices that governments have adopted over many decades.
There is work going on. There are law schools in the country that are working closely with communities to help, looking at revitalizing and actually memorializing in writing what their systems of law actually are. Then we're looking at those to figure out how to have an agreement, as we're looking at self-government, that can work within that system of law, as well as our own.
I think that these are really important pieces of work.