Mr. Speaker, I will try to be as thorough as possible in my remaining three minutes.
To me, Bill S-3 is the best example of a bill indigenous people should have been part of when drafting. If the government had spent some time consulting Stéphane Descheneaux and others, while spending less time repeating talking points, it could have fixed this mess months and months ago. Instead, the government waited until it received an extension to its court mandate deadline to get to work.
The department did much better this time around. It spent less time talking about what it was going to do and more time listening. Many indigenous groups were happy to show all the problems with Bill S-3 and how it can be fixed.
While Bill S-3 can no longer claim to fix all gender-based discrimination when amended, it is a good starting point for phase two.