First off, it literally has to be the federal government going to first nations, not the Assembly of First Nations, not political organizations, but the rights holders themselves, and providing information on what's potentially in these agreements, who benefits, and what the potential negative impacts are, so that they can make informed decisions about whether they want to be in or out.
In order to be out, there needs to be opt-out provisions for people with aboriginal title, for example, who don't want timber or minerals taken from their territory for the purposes of any of these free trade agreements. They need to be able to opt out if, after all their free and prior consultation process, their answer is no. The current Prime Minister said specifically, before he was elected, that no means no for first nations, and we expect him to live up to that. Nowhere is that more important than in these international free trade agreements.
There are first nation experts who work on international trade issues, who work on the legal issues, who would be more than able to do this. Certainly, doing a token political appointment of the national chief of the Assembly of First Nations on an advisory committee to a minister who doesn't even attend the free trade negotiations is not what we're talking about when we're talking about direct participation and decision-making.