Thank you, Mr. Chair. I want to reiterate that you have my full confidence in allocating the speaking time that you give to each person around the table.
Good afternoon, Mr. Boissonnault. Thank you for being with us today.
We took note of the apology you made in your opening remarks. Of course, it won't be up to us to determine whether that apology will suffice. That will be up to the first nations, the indigenous peoples, who felt disrespected by your behaviour.
As you know, reconciliation is founded on the recognition of first nations. Pretending that you're an indigenous person, benefiting from some of the services put in place by the government as reconciliation efforts, doing that wrongly, undermines reconciliation efforts in a way. You have to know that there were a lot of mistakes made.
You weren't just an MP; you were a minister. When a public figure of your stature does that, what message do you think it sends to first nations?