Thank you for the question.
I do agree that some sort of panel needs to be convened. Whether it's expert, that really depends on how representative they are by community. The community has to validate the experts who are on the committee. The experts have to make a proactive effort to speak for the community instead of down to the community. The selection would be difficult.
I would instead call it an expert panel of communicators and consultants who can go into communities and really hear what people are saying and be able to give feedback to the government and other organizations, including corporations, on what the community is actually saying. That's probably the most important thing.
These things overlap. One of the things we found in health is that the jurisdictional framework differs significantly between the province and on reserve. For example, health professionals likely don't have to be licensed while on reserve, so as a physician, if I practice 100% in Health Canada I probably am not legally obligated to receive a licence from the College of Physicians and Surgeons.
The same situation exists for quality and safety, as well as the way that you operationalize resource development on reserve lands. Those things have to be considered as well.
I think if you do create a process where people feel heard, where they feel like they participate in defining the problem and the solutions and the implementation strategies from the very beginning, that can align very nicely with the other processes that are in there.
I think UNDRIP goes a long way to making that happen. The issue with UNDRIP is whether or not it becomes legal in the same way that it's written. If we do adopt UNDRIP in the way that it's written, I do think we'll progress in a way we need to. If we cherry-pick the parts of UNDRIP that we like and don't legalize all of the components, then I think we're going to have the same problems that we had before.