Okay. I'll start again.
Thank you for the opportunity to speak to the committee today. This is a critical study, and I am pleased that the committee is undertaking this work.
I will start by asking a foundational question: Does Canada accept that Indian Act bands are governments within the federation of Canada? If Canada does, then as governments, first nations are entitled to the same revenue-raising tools and powers that other orders of government have available to them as they provide services for their communities. This is the central element of UNDRIP: self-government and reconciliation.
First nations have already demonstrated they generate greater and better outcomes in delivering programs and services to our communities when we exercise fiscal powers to raise revenues rather than being funded through federal programs. The pay-as-you-go system that we are dependent on today is so far removed from what any other level of government would accept. The status quo is holding indigenous people back from closing socio-economic gaps, reducing the cost of poverty—