Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  If it's okay, Ryan, I'll go first. Number one, I am astonished by the patience of indigenous peoples. We've been talking about this for 150 years and one of the most single continuities in indigenous law is government lawlessness: you pass a law; you ignore it. Aboriginal folks win Supreme Court decisions and say, “Wow, this is great”, and then 10 years later what have you got?

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  If you don't mind my answering that one, I'll say we absolutely need to learn from other peoples. A lot of other people learn from us, by the way, and a lot of us who specialize in this field end up getting lots of invitations to other countries to talk about what we do right and what we do wrong.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  As Ryan suggested, I believe very much that we need to find a way to bring these issues to resolution, ways in which first nations actually feel as though they have been respected and honoured in the process. The problem with these issues is that they drag on way too long and we do not have proper mechanisms to solve the problem, address the problem, and bring out a solution.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  That is an excellent question. I would put a lot of emphasis on what I call symbolism. I think we need a national statement of reconciliation. You can call it a royal proclamation, as Miles Richardson just did. Everything everyone else said makes an awful lot of sense, but we need public engagement and we need ceremony.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  Thank you very much, Madam Chair, and members of the committee. I'm honoured to speak to you about an issue I consider to be of fundamental importance to the future of Canada. I speak to you today from the homeland of the Okanagan Nation. I was supposed to be in Norway, but Toronto can't handle winter so they closed down the airport and I ended up in Kelowna instead.