Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  Thank you. The way that the Similkameen people have been implementing our own laws.... We have an oral tradition, and one of the barriers that we face is the recording of our oral tradition and documenting that. I think one of the reasons it's so important in terms of land restitution is it is the cornerstone of governance and protection of our land bases.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  Yes, on the nature agreement—I think one of the concerns we have with the provincial-federal nature agreement is that there is very limited first nations input into even the drafting of the document. We had heard, I guess through outside means, that there were maybe two or three advisers, potentially, to the work being undertaken, but the draft of the nature agreement as well as any input from those nations related to the barriers we face in terms of protecting the lands are excluded.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  [Witness spoke in Nsyilxcen] [English] Thank you to the committee for me to be present for this important topic on land restitution. [Witness spoke in Nsyilxcen] [English] I speak the names of my late mother and father, John Terbasket and Delphine Abraham, as well as my children, councilman Ira Edward and my daughter Tanisha Begaye.