Mr. Speaker, I thank my hon. colleague for his questions.
With regard to the issue of transparency, I have eight reserves in my constituency. We also had people participating from four Métis settlements. In every single case there were many concerns expressed about a lack of transparency.
One person who participated said that the concept of actually fully disclosing and then having discussion among the band members as to how money should be spent was foreign to him. He said they had never heard anything like that before. Clearly transparency is not there now. There is no insurance that it will be there under the current rules, and the rules that are there are not enforced. That is something that was made very clear again and again. That is something that has to start happening.
If we are to make meaningful change and if the government really wants to move in the direction of more self-government, giving more control over their own destiny to aboriginal people, then we have to ensure through tough guidelines that are enforced that there is transparency. That has not happened.
It is complete folly moving toward giving any more power to chiefs and councils before that happens. What we have to do first is have the accountability, the transparency, then move toward giving aboriginal people more control over their own destiny in a way that they really want.
A blank cheque given to a band council on the issue of marital split is a concern I hear about quite often. I also hear about cases where a couple has split, divorced, moved apart, with one person being on the reserve and one off. If they lived on the reserve the only assets they would have had, in most cases, would have been on the reserve.