Mr. Speaker, first, I will confirm that the Government of Canada has learned lessons in making bills optional. The one answer then flows from that premise. Not everybody will be ready to assume this.
I would love everybody to get in on it, but the reality is there is a diversity of cultures. First nations are not homogeneous. There are over 600 first nations. They have cultural backgrounds that vary. There are some things that they hold in common, for example in their value systems, but there is uniqueness in their cultures, geographies and languages and also in their capacity stages.
We would be hopeful that as soon as this bill could become law, and that requires not the House but the other place, those first nations that are ready will rapidly go into this bill. There are other first nations that are preparing themselves right now and have shown interest in Indian moneys. I do not think we will see a rush. I think people will work toward this, and that is perfectly acceptable and right. That is a logical way.
I will also acknowledge that there is a continuum of readiness. If the main focus in the community is getting some infrastructure in place and there is limited human resource, expertise and moneys, their heads may not be around all the requirements of getting ready for this. Canadians expect accountability and first nations communities themselves have asked us for the accountability on the fiscal side on the bill also. The auditing and accountability mechanisms are important.
Again, I stress that this is because of the hard work of first nations. This is a first nations-led initiative. The partnership of working toward these types of bills is absolutely crucial to success. We should not measure outcome on a bill like this on how rapidly other people get in. What we should be looking for is the progression of readiness on a number of fronts simultaneously. It is our responsibility as parliamentarians to assist where we can with legislation and other efforts, and we are moving in that direction.
Compared to many decades ago, as government right now, we also are being extremely progressive and moving rapidly on what we consider the appropriate processes to deal not only with our legislation but first nations communities.