What we said, within our correspondence with the federal government, was very clear. There needs to be conversation. There needs to be a conversation with Métis communities that are not a part of the Métis Nation of Alberta. There needs to be a conversation, so that protections are built in. There needs to be a conversation, so that when this bill comes to fruition, and when we reach this stage of the process, we would have had an ability to entertain that conversation.
We sent this multiple times and, again, the correspondence we sent was in opposition to the Métis Nation of Alberta, and strictly to that, because of the fact that we were under constant threat in terms of the treatment of our Métis communities through litigation.
With that said, what we said to the government is that this is so critical. Former minister Marc Miller had a conversation with us after the self-government agreements were signed in February. He gave us 15 minutes. I made it very clear to him that the process leading up to Bill C-53 was not just sloppy; it was lazy, because there was no work put in to make sure that we got this right.