First of all, I need to say that I'm not a lawyer. I'm not giving you legal advice. You can talk to my sister, who is a lawyer, for that. I can't solve all of the legal dilemmas in about five minutes, but I can give you a good try.
I think in every culture there's private and public information. I'm sure you have stories in your family that you don't necessarily tell in public, and when they do come out in public, it can be a little embarrassing. It's the same in indigenous communities. It's really wonderful that people are so interested in them and there's this curiosity about them, but there is private information in our families. I think we have to acknowledge that this is here, and it's always going to be present, no matter who it is.
I come from an anthropology background. We know that anthropologists were guilty of this. They went out and collected stories They were so concerned to write down the stories in the era of salvage anthropology, when they felt that indigenous people were dying in Canada and that they would die out, that they didn't worry about finding out whether they were private or family stories, or things that could be told in public, or when they could be told. There was an absence there of the protocols.
I always say to everybody that it's about relationships. Reconciliation is really about relationships, and what we're doing with communities. You have to go back to the communities and form a relationship with them, and then find out from those communities how to access that knowledge, how it's preserved, who owns that knowledge, how it's stored, and how you can share it, or if you have the right to share it.
That's part of the legal system in governance systems. Indigenous communities need the government's help to be able to establish those protocols. When you come and ask that question of an Anishinaabe person, they can say, “Well, we've gone back to our elders and our community, and this is how we deal with this knowledge.” There needs to be that work.
That's part of the reason I and many other people felt that a generic respect, affirming, and recognizing would be the way to go, and then allow the communities the time to be able to work with their communities on that knowledge.
I hope I answered your question. I don't think I can give you a whole lot.