Mr. Speaker, as we have seen, the two-year terms under the Indian Act election system right now simply do not provide enough time for a first nations chief in councils to propose any consistency in their community to allow them enough time to implement a plan perhaps on which they campaigned. The election cycle is too short.
However, the highlights of the legislation, the benefits for communities that choose to opt in, will include reforming the electoral system, which is too often open to abuse, close loopholes in the nomination process so only folks who want to be on the ballot are actually on it and provide the tools and mechanisms to discourage the abuse of the mail-in ballot system.
Right now there are too many loopholes in the Indian Act system. There is too much potential for abuse, and certainly we have seen cases of that abuse. This legislation for those first nations that opt into it would certainly close those loopholes and provide more certainty for those first nations.