It's not just first nations' success we're talking about that matters. Come to my committee and see the single mom who's off welfare or my friend who stayed out of prison.
When you talk about resource development at the first nations stage, you have to remember that revenues and benefits don't all go to the first nations. The government gets benefits. The government then turns around and uses that money for highways, hospitals and schools—even our paycheques as politicians. Everybody benefits from that, non-first nations and first nations alike.
The reconciliation we're talking about, I think, should be characterized as a political and legal relationship that has to be mended, because right now, first nations participate in every part of society I just mentioned. We love the hospitals, our cellphones and the highways. It's this political obstruction we have at the courts, which had been settled for the last 10 years, that we're now having to go back and revisit.
At the end of the day, true reconciliation at the economic level benefits everybody, and you're seeing it in action when we're talking about our daily lives. Everything we take for granted is what first nations actually want. They want to get a mortgage, which is happening right now, today. They want to go to the hospital. They want a doctor and a nurse. They want a new cellphone. It's this political definition of “reconciliation” that's holding us back.