Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague from Sherbrooke for that question.
The communities do have a lot of reporting requirements. Compared to what is asked of municipalities of 800 inhabitants like those in my riding, the fact that aboriginal communities are being asked to prepare all these reports is incredible, when they live in poverty and difficult conditions in many instances. We are asking them to deal with more red tape. There are ways to ensure the financial transparency of first nations communities without asking them to prepare more annual reports.
If federal government members travelled to the communities to see things for themselves, they would understand. When you take the time to travel, to go to those communities and to see the money that has been invested there and the repairs that have been made, you can see whether a community is properly managing its money.
The government might not need as many reports if it took the trouble to go and meet with them and talk to them.