That's a really good question.
It's actually a very big challenge, in terms of major natural resources projects going forward, that there's inconsistency in terms of support that first nations have.
You're right. The regulatory processes are very complex and very long. The lifespan of a project can have several regulatory processes that first nations just don't have the capacity to meaningfully participate in, even though that's the law. Even in duty to consult, first nations have to be meaningfully engaged in the process. Often, it's left to industry to provide that support.
The Crown often delegates its authority to that and that makes for inconsistent application of....There's really no mechanism beyond the fact that it's a legal standard. There is no uniform mechanism for first nations and rights holders to be meaningfully part of the engagement, the consultation and, as you say, free, prior and informed consent.
That standard requires exactly that: Free means first nations are willing to do this; prior means beforehand; and informed means that they have all the information in front of them in order to engage in the process. That's the standard and there should be adequate resourcing for them to do that for a multitude of reasons, but mainly the ones our national chief mentioned. There's an infrastructure gap. There's chronic underfunding. First nations are always in a situation where they're trying to manage a multitude of social and economic factors along with being part of a complex regulatory process.