Mr. Chairman, I hear you and I will not push my luck. I do have a problem which I thought maybe I would take the opportunity to express while we're on the general comments of Investing in Our Future. One of the observations is I think the Minister should immediately...If this consultation is going to start, he should start now . I hope that we don't look at the next fiscal year to start that consultation process.
The other thing is I think a lot of the expenditures that occurred this summer could be quite obvious. Where all the expenditures have happened and what could be done about it, that should be identified.
The other issue is if he is going to be talking to the elders, then one of the things we know -- and it's pretty obvious -- is that in the north, the summers are getting warmer and it's getting to be quite a problem. On the fire suppression program, I don't know if the dollars allocated for fire suppression are on the increase from the federal government in order to meet the fire suppression needs for the year.
I'm hoping that when we have a situation like we did this summer where it was dry, the federal government is made aware of it. If we plan then we won't be put in this situation. When I went to Snowdrift there were two fires. Because they were on an island or seemed to be on an island, they were just let go to burn themselves out. I think that's a really bad working policy, if you have such a policy. For the aboriginal people, the land, whether it's burned or not, is important to them.
I still say you should develop a policy in all areas where fires have taken place so that absolutely nothing happens in those areas until those burned areas have had an opportunity to replenish themselves.