Good morning, colleagues, and good morning to our witnesses. Thank you all for being with us today.
This issue is so challenging for the committee. We've heard testimony from witnesses—first nations leaders, chiefs and members of different nations, including today, of course—who are very clear and very strong in their support for the amendments contained in Bill S-2. They insist that the discrimination contained in the Indian Act has to end. It's incompatible with Canadian values, and it's an infringement upon the rights and dignity of first nations and indigenous people, particularly women.
We've also heard from representatives and leaders of other first nations and indigenous communities who say that while the discrimination in the Indian Act must end, they do not support these specific amendments because they view the idea that the government would change the Indian Act in a way that creates new members of those nations without the consent of those nations as an infringement on the Crown's duty to consult.
The work of this committee and the government is to find the best way forward between these two critical imperatives and these two principles, each of which is fundamental, but in this case, they are actually in some tension. There's the question around ending discrimination, and there's the question around the Crown's obligation to consult with indigenous peoples precisely in the way that it has not done historically and obviously did not do in the case of the Indian Act.
In that context, my first question is for the national chief.
Thank you for being with us today, Chief. You have advocated frequently for the need for first nations to have control over their own membership and their own citizenship. I'm wondering if you can elaborate on why self-government and control over membership are so fundamental to first nations, in your view.