Thanks, Mr. Chair, and thank you for coming before the committee today.
I think there were a couple of points in your presentation that I found a bit troubling. I just want to make a quick comment about consultation. Every time we have a piece of legislation before this committee, the issue of consultation is raised, as Mr. Russell points out.
I would argue—and this is not a partisan remark, because there have been successive governments that have failed to work with first nations to develop a consultation policy—that there seems to be a fundamental philosophical difference around lack of recognition of nation-to-nation status, as I've said before. I would argue, and I think many of the witnesses have argued, that appearing before a committee does not constitute consultation. What happened with the Assembly of First Nations was an effort to get input, but in no way can it be deemed to be consultation, and the federal government, as you pointed out, cannot delegate its duty to consult. We don't have the terms of reference, but my understanding is that the Assembly of First Nations was asked to facilitate a dialogue, which hardly constitutes consultation. I just wanted to make that comment.
I want to come back to your comment about the fact that some first nations have had their specific claims process shut down. We've heard this from other nations as well. When I go back to the transitional clause that's in the legislation, my understanding of it is that there was going to be a period of time for claims in transition. I'm surprised that we're already hearing of nations that have had their claims rejected or not considered for negotiation when there have been no guidelines set out and the bill hasn't even come into effect.
When he came to the committee, we raised with the minister the issue of how backlogs were going to be dealt with. Now, if one of the ways for dealing with backlogs is to reject claims at the outset and to tell first nations that they have to resubmit their claims once the bill is passed, that hardly seems like a fair and reasonable way to deal with backlogs. When the minister replied to the committee on the issue of dealing with the backlogs—because, depending on whose numbers you use, there are 800 or 900 or 1,200 specific claims in the system—he mentioned that 50% of those claims were small claims. We've heard some different points of view on that.
In your view, what needs to be in place to deal with the substantial backlog? If we're just going to have people get back into the line-up, they're going to face an additional three to six years before they're even going to be considered. So what, in your view, has to be done to deal with the backlog?