Well, I think what's not clear to me or clear to many indigenous people is that far too often well-intentioned bills and laws can potentially be utilized against first nations peoples. I believe Vice-Chief Bear gave a good example. Perhaps there is a report on somebody or perhaps somehow this is utilized in nefarious ways to really infringe on a person's ability to hunt and/or an indigenous person's ability to really access sustenance—food, resources. I think far too often there's too much leeway.
It's unclear how this bill is going to be utilized and, I would say, who the chief firearms officer is. Far too often, even within policing, we've seen before that perhaps the officer—the firearms officer—utilizes this in a way that really punishes indigenous people. To me, if the rules aren't clear and there is too much leeway, those liberties will be taken and will be utilized by people against our indigenous people. They will be utilized in a way that really affects our right to hunt. That's what I'm afraid of. I think it really comes down to who is utilizing this—more than likely it would be a firearms officer or police officer—and what the rules are, and when, where and how you utilize this bill.
Certainly I agree with the safety aspect, because far too often what we've seen, as many of you in this committee have seen, are handguns and some other firearms utilized in relation to gangs and whatnot. That's always concerning for many first nations as well.