Mr. Speaker, you suggested that if one had any new information that might help you would receive this.
I know of this particular official. I spent 20 years in the consulting business in Alberta. One of our areas of work was trying to improve relations between aboriginal people and oil companies. In the conduct of that work I had encounters with this official.
The real problem—and the minister simply does not address it—is that many bureaucrats in this department started out idealistic and got into this matter to try to help aboriginal people. Because of the difficulties of the problems being dealt with and the machinery they had to work with, they have become utterly cynical about whether there is anything they can do. They now no longer try to help. They simply play by the bureaucratic rules and the more bureaucratic the better. Those are the real problems.
The minister's response does not address those problems at all. Perhaps the minister could think for a moment. If we were first nations people who were pulled in from that band, 15 to 25 of us, could she put herself into their shoes and listen to her own statement? It is utter bureaucratic nonsense that does not address the concerns of the people.
This is what the hon. member was endeavouring to get beyond by arranging this meeting. The minister's response takes the side of the bureaucrats, not just against this member of Parliament but against the interests of ordinary people who would find her answer utterly incomprehensible, as do the members on this side of the House.