Every industry is a bundle of disciplines. Mining is one of them, as well as geology, geophysics, environmental science, and mining engineering. You have to pick one stream of activities. In this case, I mention the environmental assessment, which has biophysical disciplines. In the example I gave, with the $27,000 in what was then called a comprehensive environmental assessment, there were three phases. The $27,000 was supposed to allow the communities to review the EIS guidelines and, I'm assuming, be part of the studies and then the peer review—the three stages.
What do you do with $27,000? What consultant would come out and help them, in a remote community, for $27,000? That's probably your travel budget to go north.
When I hear this new government talk about enhancing indigenous participation, I don't know how that is done without providing more resources to the communities or providing more resources around the environmental assessment. If it's business development—which is another stream of activities and a different set of skills, understanding, and capacity—then there are start-up funds and training that's tied to that particular project.
When I hear the words “enhance community engagements” or “enhance indigenous programs”.... I know, from my own experience, that we know what the needs are. Past and current programs are not meeting those needs if they want full and meaningful participation in any project across Canada.