The department and first nations, of course, share the very considerable challenges we're talking about. The very nature of the department's existence has in it a partnership with first nations, and so there's a great incidence of partnership with first nations, flowing from the contracted funding agreements we have to more innovative cooperative endeavours that result in things such as new legislation to fill important gaps. There are a great many instances of a very strong cooperative effort that bears fruit.
The Auditor General referred to complexities in roles that actually contribute to suspicion and to building confidence. In particular, there was reference in the report to this duality of role between providing service with a responsibility for effective service provision for people's well-being and playing the role of a negotiator in terms of claim settlement. That is a reality; those two roles exist within the department, and the department sees ways to mitigate the real or perceived conflict that can flow from them. We quite separate the negotiation role. We have a separate sector of the department that deals with it. The people who provide services are not the people who sit to negotiate the outcomes of claims or treaties.
There are means such as this that are helpful, but I think the very long and complex history and the difficulty of outdated legislation all add to the challenge of having as effective or full a partnership as we'd like to have.
But it's something the department values greatly. The minister values it greatly and spoke about it energetically again yesterday. Every step forward in terms of important innovations, and certainly our policy work, involves a close dialogue and consultations with first nations.