Mr. Speaker, I have had the great honour to work with some of the Algonquin communities in northern Quebec and really learn on the ground how the governance structures need to work. I have also had the great honour to serve the Cree communities of the upper James Bay region.
We certainly know that the two-year cycle of elections has been very disruptive and we are glad to see that is changing. Two years is not sufficient time to build any kind of sustainable governance structure.
The problem with what continues to be imposed is that it is an inverted model of accountability. It is that the band and the band council are responsible to the minister, not to the people.
In our regions in the north, 180 years ago we had the Hudson Bay agent, who lorded it over the land. Then we had the Indian agent. Now we have the INAC bureaucrat. As far as I can see, they are all the same guy and they all stem from the same problem, which is this idea that they are the ones who will make the decisions and not the people whose lives are being affected. That is not a democratic model.