Thanks, I appreciate that.
Thank you to both of the witnesses for being here and for your testimony as we consider international best practices for engaging indigenous communities, particularly in Canada's context, with the challenges around indigenous consultation on major energy and other natural resource projects.
I wonder if each of you might be able to shed some light on a challenge relating to indigenous engagement on energy projects when it comes to who exactly would be the decision-makers or the ideal people at the table with the government representative, the government representative being one who has decision-making authority and can make reasonable accommodations based on concerns and feedback from indigenous communities.
I raise this because there have been a couple of examples recently that we heard about in this committee, for example, with the Lax Kw'alaams on the north coast of B.C., whose elected leaders had supported the establishment of an LNG project there. There were also individuals who claimed to be hereditary leaders of the community, and their perspective, which they certainly had a right to express, was opposed to the potential LNG project that the elected leaders supported. They claimed to be representatives of the band, and they opposed the LNG project against the will of the elected leadership. That matter was later settled in court, where a judge ruled that the person was not, in fact, a hereditary leader.
Sometimes there are differences in the Canadian context. For example, at this committee we've had representatives of the Assembly of First Nations come here to attempt to give an overarching perspective on behalf of indigenous communities, but there are many representatives of individual indigenous communities who say the representatives of the AFN don't speak for them or don't necessarily reflect their views or positions.
Chief Erasmus and Dr. Mack, do you have any feedback for us on how to sort through the complications with regard to who should be consulted with and who should be making the ultimate decisions in that consultation process?
Dr. Mack, Chief Erasmus is giving you the green light to go first.