Mr. Chair, of any amendments we've seen today, this amendment is closest in intent to that of Mr. Tootoo's which the committee passed, but it's different. It deals with indigenous issues. It attempts to have the Oceans Act proactively reflect the federal government's commitment to implementing the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, and to work in a real nation-to-nation relationship.
We already have reflections of that in the Oceans Act, in the ability of the minister to establish regional ocean co-management bodies. What this amendment does—I really think it is an exciting one—and I don't know how familiar members of this committee are.... I know the environment committee has studied the tremendous potential of co-management of protected areas in terrestrial zones with indigenous people. One of our best examples probably is Gwaii Haanas and the Haida Gwaii watchmen program, but there have been other watchmen programs established in our northern parks.
Let me just run through the amendment. It is a longer amendment. I'm not going to read it to you, but it does require that the minister:
shall recognize the jurisdiction of aboriginal peoples over areas of the sea in respect of which they have aboriginal rights or title, having particular regard to protected and conserved areas, and provide for the participation of aboriginal organizations or persons in the management of those areas.
Specifically, the next section sets up the concept of guardians, and the guardian, in subsection (3):
has all the powers and may perform all the duties and functions of an enforcement officer
These provisions would allow coastal indigenous peoples to be full participants in management, enforcement, protection, and engagement in the MPAs as they go forward. As I said, there are a lot of terrestrial precedents, and this would, I think, be a really exciting way that Bill C-55 would be consistent with the recent announcement of our Minister of Justice that the government is going to support Romeo Saganash's private member's bill to bring the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples into all of our legislation. You'd be ahead of the curve here in the fisheries and oceans committee to accept this amendment.