I will start off with this: Yes, I would agree that there is insufficient indigenous engagement to date, and we don't see a proper form of engagement proposed at this point by ministers Champagne or Holland.
Just to provide a bit of historical context to our awareness of the capstone, we only became informed about the Bouchard report on June 21, 2024. That's three months after the spring federal budget announcement. The first thing we did as a circle was to review the Bouchard report. We learned at that point that there was only one indigenous representative who was a part of the advisory panel. That was Dr. Vianne Timmons, and some folks may be familiar with her.
Of course, we learned right away that Dr. Timmons, at the end of 2023, came out as a pretendian; she was an ethnic fraud. That means that there was no indigenous representation that supported the development of this report.
In addition, we also saw a lack of engagement with our circle directly for the development of the Bouchard report, despite our outlined responsibilities in the SIRC plan. Therefore, when I hear Dr. Nemer respectfully share her testimony, I do think that important data and voices are still missing and that we can't rush to any decisions.
I also just wanted to point out again that there really is not enough consultation for us to be in alignment with UNDRIP, and that can pose some serious significant legal risks if we proceed without proper consultation with all indigenous rights holders. That includes first nations, Métis, Inuit, indigenous organizations, indigenous-controlled institutions, indigenous researchers and existing oversight bodies within the tri-agencies themselves.