It's been said by others before me, and I'm sure it will be said by others after. In my opening remarks, I was clear that at the end of the day, first nations have to be in charge and determining ourselves what these businesses are and the criteria they meet.
I am a proponent of ensuring that benefits go to those who are rightly deserving of them, but at the same time, I don't want a process that's overbearing and cumbersome for our indigenous entrepreneurs and that ultimately detracts from and adds additional costs to becoming part of an organization that will be created. At the end of the day, we need some type of registry system developed, managed and implemented by first nations.
Even sitting here today, it's a tough conversation to be in when I'm talking about our citizenship and who has the right to determine. As I've indicated, it should be us, but here we are in front of a number of non-indigenous parliamentarians, and we're talking about first nations citizenship, which really should be our exclusive authority and debate.