As part of our process, individuals have to meet the national definition of “Métis” and submit an application with various documents, including a family tree, a birth certificate, identification, proof of registry and a source of documents showing biological connection to historic Métis ancestry, such as a scrip document, a baptismal certificate, a marriage certificate or death records and things like this.
Our registry is very robust, and we have amazing genealogists who work in our registry department. We have an amazing historical record of families that are connected within our nation, an amazing library of connections.
It is not an easy process to become a citizen of the Métis nation within Alberta. It can take months. It can take up to a year and sometimes even a little bit longer if we don't have records already, but we have more than 70,000 people registered as citizens of the Métis nation within Alberta, so our documents are very robust.
It's not an easy process, and we have lots of checks and balances. As I said in my opening remarks, our registry meets the Canadian Standards Association. We've gone through that process and have been audited by the Canadian Standards Association. You could come in—you can't, because it's very confidential, but I'm just saying this facetiously—and grab a file out of our registry and all of the documents would be there. It's verified citizenship.