I appreciate very much the question and certainly agree with you. Certainly, the Indian Act over the years has effectively locked indigenous people out of participating in the economy.
There are some things in place that are encouraging. My colleague Rob mentioned earlier that you can opt out of the Indian Act as part of the fiscal management act and set up your own financial administration laws. You can opt out of the Indian Act if you're a first nation and develop your own land code. These are certainly ways to create economic prosperity and other sources of revenue, but you're quite right: Going forward, there needs to be a whole lot more.
I can say that, with the government's commitment to developing an economic reconciliation framework, some of those discussions have already started. The framework, the policy, the vision and the actions all will be described by indigenous peoples. It's they who are going to set their future, and they who are going to say what they need. I think it's clear that revenue and economic prosperity, and removing those things and barriers that are in the way of first nations, Inuit and Métis people becoming prosperous, will certainly be top of mind.
Even within the structure that we're currently working in at Indigenous Services Canada, we're thinking, “What more can we do?” We have transfers that go out to first nations communities. Are there ways that you could look at those? Could you monetize them? Could there be ways to further encourage the money that's currently in the system to be used differently and more innovatively—to build homes, to build infrastructure?
All that is to say that there are discussions happening. Certainly, we're hearing it everywhere. I think that perhaps even with the economic reconciliation framework there's a real opportunity to hear from indigenous peoples on how they would like that to go.