Thank you, Mr. Chair. I'll be splitting my time with my colleague Ms. Watts.
Thank you to the witnesses for being here.
Ms. Crowchild, a number of things you brought up really don't have anything to do with what our study is on, the national security framework, but I have to respond to them, and I have a question for you, because you brought them up.
You talk about treaties broken and the residential schools. I totally agree with you, and every Canadian, I believe, would support the fact that there is no doubt that your people have been wronged in the past. The previous government apologized for the residential schools issue. You can't change what happened. It was a terrible black mark on Canadian history, no doubt about it. But we have to go forward, as you say, to live in harmony. The previous government settled more treaties in the time frame than any other government in history, and I presume the present government is working on that same timeline. I support that the treaties that were broken have to be negotiated and settled. I'm fully there.
A former colleague of mine, a native MP from northern Saskatchewan, worked hard to make huge changes to the Indian Act. I consider him a good friend. I know he was frustrated at times. Negotiations between the government and your people never made much headway. But I do agree that in order to replace it, you must have something to replace it with. We haven't been able to come up collectively with something there, so I think that should continue on.
The social and cultural aspect I totally support. I'm very proud of my Irish-Scottish roots, as you are of your native ancestry. But we're both Canadians first and what have you.
On self-government, I think most of us support and believe in the fact that you should have self-government, providing that you can fund it yourself, with the exception of seed money and the regular grants that other municipalities in Canada get.
I was also a councillor, I was a mayor. You're on council. I don't know whether you've been chief or not; that doesn't matter. The point here is that with the first nations accountability act, every other municipality or city or province that deals with the federal government has to be accountable for any monies they get from there. Can you explain to me or tell me why first nations communities that get money from the federal government shouldn't have to be accountable for it in the same way?