Mr. Speaker, I first want to thank the minister for his leadership on this file and acknowledging that we needed to do a thorough engagement process, one that had never been done before, not in the size or scope of any legislation, certainly not from my perspective after almost two decades of living in the north and seeing the extent to which we performed our consultations to develop the framework he was explaining.
I would like to ask him if he could explain a little more the thorough engagement process that has occurred between the Government of Canada and first nations. Are there technical experts involved? Did community members get a chance to speak about these really important issues before our framework or pathway was established?