Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for allowing me to speak. Natan—of course a very close friend of mine—it's great to see you again. Marlene, it's been a while since I saw you. It's great to hear your opinion and views. Natan, you'll see me now reading something, which I'm not typically used to doing.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  That's a very important question. What's so beautiful about the indigenous culture, in particular my culture—I'll speak, of course, of the Métis nation—is that the elders always come first. That's the number one priority of our systems. In fact, when COVID was being discussed throughout the media in December, we started talking within our own nation about what we were going to be doing if this ever came to North America.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  As I said, I do commend you, Gary. You're the first one to raise the Métis name and the whole issue of the media in northern Saskatchewan. It was always indigenous, indigenous, indigenous, and the concept that there was a crisis happening in the Métis community was getting lost.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  In fact, the Métis government... what we did in Manitoba is we have a very close relationship.... We actually have RCMP posted right in our building because it's a long-term relationship we've built with them, to work in conjunction with our communities. Second, we actually put the MMF government itself—and I thank you for your interest in that field, that area—we put a $10,000 reward to help for missing and murdered indigenous women and girls.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  I can add to that. We three leaders had a discussion with the Prime Minister with respect to what Canada was going to attempt to do and how it was going to go about distributing resources. That helped a lot and gave us a direction; it set the framework for us. Yes, everybody can say it's never enough, but from my perspective one of the key issues was to set the foundation so that the flexibility was there on that money.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  Mr. Chair, I can't. This is important. We're taking advice from all of the medical experts right now in Canada. We're listening to the doctors and trying to follow that direction.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  Thank you very much, Bob, for that. Let me say this. From our perspective, testing is clearly—you're absolutely right—one of the keys to solving this or helping to at least curb it in some form or fashion. There's definitely not enough testing taking place across the country. When you look at it from the Métis side—I use MMF, and I've been the president there for 22 years.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  Let me start. Thanks. Nobody has asked that question. From our perspective let me put it this way: from here to eternity probably, because we never got anything. We didn't get one mask. We didn't get one hand sanitizer. We didn't get anything in our Métis communities. As I said, there are 400,000 of us in western Canada, and we play a very important role in the economy of this country.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  I have to apologize to my cousins in Quebec. I'm not connected to the translation. Can somebody repeat in English what the question was, please?

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  I do apologize to Sylvie.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  I don't see Perry on the screen, so I'll jump ahead of him. There you go, Perry. I have to get ahead of you, man. Anyway, I thank Leah for that question, and let me answer this way: It truly is an important prospect, and I think that is what is shown, again, when I talk about the lack of proper planning.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  If I can, Mr. Chair, I'll add on to Jaime's question. I was quite surprised by Gary's question because I think it's a wrong approach to the question. First of all, I wanted to commend him personally because he's the only one that raised the Métis issue, the Métis Nation. After the fact of what is happening in La Loche and all the Métis villages, he's the only one that raised the Métis.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  Yes. The first case came into La Loche around April 15 or 17, and when it took off, it took off. However, the reserve next door.... It's connected. It's the same thing across Manitoba with Métis villages. For those of you who do not know the Métis community in western Canada, on nearly every reserve you'll find a Métis village next door.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  Thank you, Mr. Chair. Let me compliment you on pronouncing ITK because I can't say it to my old friend Natan. There are so many different times that I've tried. I want to start off quickly, before I do my presentation, with this. I'm a leader who likes to speak right off the cuff.

Finance committee  If I may, Mr. Chair....