Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
Thank you to all the ministers for being here for this discussion.
It has been mentioned already, Minister Vandal, that you will not be re-offering in the next election. I just want to say—and I believe I speak on behalf of everyone here at the committee—we are really going to miss your interactions with Mr. Zimmer. I wanted to make sure I got that on the record. There's never a dull moment.
For my questions, I want to turn to my northern Ontario neighbour, Minister Hajdu.
Minister, I want to ask you about policing specifically.
Recently, the Province of Alberta and National Chief Woodhouse put out a joint statement calling on the government to declare first nations police services as essential services. That's something the Province of Alberta is looking to move toward, which I think is a great step. This is something I believe is vitally important for first nations, especially, frankly, after nine years of your government, during which we have seen crime increasing. We have seen overdoses and overdose deaths unfortunately increasing. All of these challenges are happening right across the country and, unfortunately, first nations are also not immune to those challenges. It speaks to the need for more policing and more resources for first nations policing.
Your government promised, I believe two years ago, that this would be a promise fulfilled, and we have seen very little action to date on that. Can you speak to why your government is dragging its feet on something as essential as first nations policing?