Madam Speaker, I appreciate the member's comments which were very well thought out. I appreciate the loyal opposition party putting someone in that role who has had some experience in land claims and can do a detailed analysis of agreements.
Unfortunately, though, I do not think he has convinced us of the four points. I know these four points were brought up at the beginning of the debate. I also appreciate the fact that he brought new evidence today.
However I want to reiterate that there is not a problem with those points.
The first point had to do with this being the first time that two agreements have been combined. This is not the first time because the Nisga'a agreement combined both the self-government and the land claim agreement.
He made four major points on international trade. As it says in the agreement, the parties specifically consult if an international agreement will affect governments. Why would our government not want to consult if it would affect another government? We make the final decision. We do what we have to do. It certainly makes sense that land claims in this country, as the member will well know, set a new environment of negotiation, a new relationship between aboriginal people and other Canadian governments. Under those circumstances, it would only be polite to consult and do what we could if there were concerns we were not aware of.
The second major item was that a public government has to have Indian Act members. Frankly, I do not understand this concern. This is what happens in all the land claims agreements across the country. There are all sorts of both settled and unsettled land claims where first nation people have provisions specifically for them.
The third point is about the charter. It states right in the agreement that the charter applies and that if there is any discrepancy between the agreement and the Constitution, the agreement applies and the agreement states specifically that the charter applies. We have said that on numerous occasions.
In finality is not a new concept. If some other negotiated land claim settlement has a well worked out financial taxation provision, why would that not be accessible to the Tlicho? We do not want to have a checkerboard of different taxation regimes in the Northwest Territories, so why would they not all be the same if that is the best? That has been applied in Yukon and there has been no problem with that. Once again, this is not a new provision.
On constitutional workability, the hon. member says that it adds no clarity. First, thousands of decisions for pipelines have to go through all sorts of governments, municipal and first nation governments. In a country that allows people to have their say at a local level, why not? We cannot disband the thousands of municipalities or first nation governments and their ability to govern in their own area.
The hon. member says that there is nothing to clarify. We just had the supreme court reading on the Haida agreement on Queen Charlotte Islands which stated that government has to consult and take into consideration concerns when there is no agreement. Now that there will be an agreement here, it gives developers far more clarity on exactly what conditions they will fall under. The Haida agreement, which was settled a couple of weeks ago, makes the agreement even more instrumental in promoting development in the Northwest Territories and the Tlicho land claim.
