Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I had to smile when a number of MPs made the comment that membership for the Métis was anything but complex and straightforward.
My family was in the Northwest Territories and living on Big Island in 1778 when Peter Pond showed up. My family was living in a Métis community well before the Red River Métis were established in 1869, but my family is not allowed to belong to the Métis National Council or any of the Métis national organizations.
I have three brothers and a sister that belong to different organizations. My sister belongs to the NTMT Métis Nation. One of my brothers belongs to the North Slave Métis Alliance. I belong to the Dehcho First Nations. We're all brothers and sisters. I'm in a land claim and my sister's in a land claim, but my brother, who's North Slave Métis, is not allowed to settle a land claim—yet we're all brothers and sisters.
It's anything but easy and simple. It is going to take a lot of time to sort out definitions.
I want to ask Minister Petitpas Taylor, while I have the opportunity, about the veterans affairs committee. I want to ask about the study that's being done that focuses on the experiences of indigenous veterans.
I want her to share some observations. I raise the point because I had an uncle who went to war. He hitched up his dog team in my community, went across Great Slave Lake and caught a flight out of Hay River to Fort Smith. He went through a lot of trouble to go fight in a war. He survived the war, but he never came back.
I'm really interested in this study, because we don't know what he did. We have no history of him. We don't know what position he held. We don't know if he was wounded. On Remembrance Day, when we're asked to speak, I can point to the fact that I had an uncle who went to war, but I don't know anything about him, because he never came back. He came back to Canada and stayed in B.C., where the government gave him some land.
Can you elaborate on this initiative you're working on?