I spoke briefly earlier about what this legislation is and what it isn't and what it represents for communities. It isn't a tale of haves and have-nots. It has been instrumental in making sure those have-nots are now haves—and I'm wildly over-characterizing and simplifying the dynamic that exists.
It is the case—and I'll repeat that because it is the case—that in this country there are still communities that are in desperate need of support from the federal government, usually because of some actions taken by the federal government in the past, notably, as I raised earlier, not paying our bills with respect to treaty and causing immeasurable damage in the first place, and now being in a position where we have to compensate.
The bill is premised on a number of things, particularly with the reforms and the capacity of communities to determine themselves what they need to do, and that is some of the refinement we see in the pieces of legislation you have in front of you.
It's also a reflection of the need to expand it, as you mentioned, to communities that are perhaps hesitating. Often, this legislation and the institutions that underpin it have been mis-characterized as municipalizing indigenous communities or forcing them to tax their own. The optionality of it, I think, clears a lot of the air with respect to what communities would choose or not choose to do.
There have been efforts and there continue to be efforts by the organization and by its leadership to engage with communities and, for example, now to try to pitch communities on what expertise they can bring to the table when it comes to some of the critical infrastructure that those communities have and are not optimizing, even based on the grants that have been supported by the Government of Canada.
I think it's about making it easier to access and making the institutions less Ottawa-heavy, but also giving them more funding and the capacity to engage with communities—I wouldn't say communities that are on the outside looking in, but communities that are looking to do things in a different way in their community. It's hard to pinpoint line item measures, in and of themselves, but with the totality of the package in front of people, I think this will be a lot more attractive, particularly with the crucial addition of the infrastructure institute, which really is something that could be game-changing for a number of communities in need.