I'm challenging you to think about how to get out of the Indian Act, for sure. I do think that, instead of flogging the model of a department pushing contribution agreements, it's worth considering in all of the elections.
You have an election next year. Any one of the five or six parties could put in their platform a commitment to redo the structures of government and create a first nations housing corporation working closely with communities and with an enormous amount of first nations leadership.
It would be a step towards the full devolution that the other member was talking about.
I would definitely recommend passing enforceable building codes and enforceable fire codes. That's really important.
There's legal ambiguity in the law right now about who owns the physical assets on reserves, which makes it very hard to get insurance. It would be possible to put some lawyers on this and amend the legislation to clarify that the first nations are the owners of the assets in their communities.