Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  Then I'd quit.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  I'll take a crack at that. I think partly the role outlined in that first section is about the convening function of the council—to bring conversations together, to highlight work that's happening and, as Mike said, to not necessarily have to reinvent the wheel every time. If th

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  Yes, I do, but I don't think it needs to be in the legislation. I think that would be up to the council. I wouldn't want to tie their hands and say, “You have to have these five” and then they realize they need seven. I would just leave it. That's part of their setting up of the

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  To speak very candidly, my concern is that the budget won't be big enough to do all of the things it's being asked to do. It's not that they won't know that they need to do that work. It's just that they won't have the resources to do it. Speaking very frankly and very candidly,

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  Yes, that's my concern also. If we into that representation issue for all of those different issues, now we're talking about a national council of about 147 people. I think we start to run into problems if that's the way we're going. That's where the council gets into defining

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  As Mike said earlier, we've been essentially engaged in a 40-year discussion about reconciliation. In so many ways, nothing about what indigenous people have been calling for in 40 years has changed. We've been saying the exact same things. The things said by someone in a positio

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  Yes, and I would absolutely agree that what gets measured gets done, but I would take issue with your analysis of the list in call to action 55. Those are in the federal jurisdiction and apply to on-reserve questions, but there are multiple issues where Métis communities are stil

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  The only caution I would add is that if you strengthen what you're asking of the national council, then you should strengthen its budget also.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  Very briefly, I think this goes about as far as we can expect it to, and it's not necessarily the federal government I'm concerned about with regard to the data-sharing agreement. Call to action 55 lists some of the proposed types of data that would go into the national council

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  I think that's why we see that very first bullet point about establishing a broad definition of reconciliation. There's reconciliation in terms of what we think of in our popular imagination of it, which stems from the Truth and Reconciliation Commission and is more about relatio

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  Can I add to that very briefly, Mr. Chair?

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  It also comes down to the first point in the mandate, which is to establish that broad definition of reconciliation. With respect to your question, you only mentioned the TRC calls to action, but RCAP had hundreds of recommendations as well. The courts have outlined reconciliat

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  I'll respond very briefly, and then others can jump in. In the work we've done, I think we've only seen the minister once, and then we were left to do our work. We were certainly supported by his office in coordinating things and all the work that needed to happen, and the staff

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  That's my view of things, yes. Certainly others can contradict me if they want to.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  Thank you, Mr. Chair and members of the committee, for inviting my colleagues and me to present some of our thoughts on the work we've been undertaking together for a year, and with a few of our colleagues for much longer than that. I want to set the context for the discussion