Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you, Mr. Minister, for coming before the committee today.
I think I'm fairly safe in stating that a number of us support the repeal of section 67, but the devil is in the details, and I think what we're seeing is a fundamental difference on what we consider is adequate consultation. It's a philosophical difference, it's an ideological difference, and it's a cultural difference. That's the crux of the matter.
The Chiefs of Ontario have said that in their view there has not been formal government-to-government discussion on the issue specifically focused on real proposed legislative language. In many people's view, their experience with the mid-1980s Bill C-31—and you and I have spoken about this before—reinstated women into their community, but paragraph 6(2)(b) has had the unintended consequence of stripping status from people who share the same family. That's part of the concern that's coming forward from people.
I have a broad question and a specific question for you. I'll ask them both so that you can have the time to respond to them.
Although I'm going to cite an international convention—I'm going to talk about the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, article 26, and about the United Nations declaration on indigenous rights, which, unfortunately, Canada didn't sign on to. It is article 14 in that particular one. Both of those articles deal specifically with the right to education. Under the universal declaration it's the right to education and the full development of the personality, and under the United Nations declaration on indigenous rights it's the right for indigenous peoples to establish and control their educational systems.
My general question is just about how we might expect that band councils will deal with the issue around the fact that they could well see a number of complaints about the differences in education that first nations people on reserves get versus the education of the general public. That's the broad general question around that, how band councils can deal with and anticipate it.
The second question I wanted to ask was around a specific reserve, which Mr. Lemay referenced already. I would expect that the people of Kashechewan could line up to file complaints about the lack of access to adequate housing, the lack of access on a consistent basis to drinking water. I wonder if you can provide any guidance about how the council in Kashechewan could deal with potential human rights complaints and what kinds of resources they would have for that.
Could you address those?