There are many needs. Let me try to describe them.
What you are asking is twofold. One is down the road, and the other one is what we do now in coming up with a framework.
Are you talking about a framework in the same fashion that the Government of Canada looks at a framework in regard to dealing with domestic matters? We are comforted with that right now. There have been several attempts to describe what that framework is going to be. As far as I'm concerned, it's still very incomplete.
When you are asking me, I guess you were asking me more at the international level. I'm not sure whether nailing down a framework is going to do it. I really feel, rather than trying to come up with a framework, that you're going to end up discussing the issues and eventually maybe the negotiations. What are we really doing talking about a framework? Who are we preparing? Are we preparing ourselves, as the Inuit people, that we would be a lot better off if we come up with a framework, and that we know what the name of the game is, and what we can touch and what we cannot touch? I don't think that's the right way of dealing with it.
What you need to do is agree to recognize that we do exist, that we have rights, and that therefore we have the rights to have the discussion with our government. We have the right to exchange with our government. Is simply writing a framework just a way of saying, “Let's just delay that. Put that on the back burner. We'll deal with later?”
I don't see how a framework is going to help us. It will probably help the government. It could even be a disadvantage for us to try to live through a framework that is going to be established, for the domestic and also for the international aspects. A framework to me is what is already imprinted in the Constitution itself. We also have a land claims agreement. That is the framework. We have a role to play with the government with regard to the ocean. That is the framework.
What's wrong with what already exists and has been established over the years? Why do we need to create another one all the time?