I worked with a coordinator who is the assistant director of our natural resources department. You know, on this issue and notion of consultation, first of all, as aboriginal people, as Mi’gmaq people, we don't have the same notion of consultation, I think, as the federal government or provincial governments. I've seen the Province of New Brunswick's written notion of consultation, and it comes nowhere near meeting the definition, the standard, that is set by us and is set by the Supreme Court in its series of decisions concerning consultations. So telling a group of people like the Mi’gmaq, who have priority rights to this resource over other non-aboriginal users, stakeholders, what we're going to do and informing us what its intentions are and what it is going to do is not consultation.
Consultation involves hearing our concerns, taking them seriously, and acting on them at the strategic planning level, not after you've made a decision, not after you've made a policy. But this is what the federal government has done. Serious consultation has never considered.... Its decision clearly does not take into consideration the interests of the Mi’gmaq.
I've outlined a couple of points on this. I more specifically talked about the honour of the crown, which it has failed to uphold. On the consultation issue, no, we reject any claim that we were consulted.