Thank you very much.
Good afternoon, witnesses, and thank you, ministers, for agreeing to appear before the committee today on this very important topic. As we've heard at committee and as you've pointed out in your remarks, we can never truly achieve reconciliation with indigenous people without addressing economic reconciliation.
So let's start there. We've had witnesses in the last little while tell us more about that in our first study, and how there needs to be a focus on the indigenous economy, procurement, business programming and access to market.
With that in mind, Minister Hajdu, when we're talking about business recovery programs and the aboriginal entrepreneurship program, according to your departmental results report document released earlier this month, your departmental goal was to increase indigenous businesses created and/or expanded by a modest 2%. It was missed by minus 6.92%. I do note that, under the explanation, the net number of businesses created may still show a decline due to closures of many indigenous businesses, but it is expected to rise again as some of these temporary measures are lifted.
With that in mind, Minister, can you tell us when your government will finally have a plan in place to end federal mandates and restrictions so that indigenous businesses can recover and thrive?