Mr. Speaker, I thank the hon. member for his work in previous Parliaments on this issue and for his wise words now.
The member hit on a very important point, which is that we need to ensure that indigenous peoples can fully participate in the economy. Certainly, that has not been possible in the past for many reasons, some of which are directly because of the Government of Canada. However, there are a number of things that our government is doing, one of which is that the Minister of Public Services and Procurement is striving to reach a goal of 5% procurement from indigenous business.
I know from my conversations with Tabatha Bull from the Canadian Council for Aboriginal Business, that many indigenous-owned businesses are in fact in the resource sector, so we must ensure that they are able to fully participate in the economy.