I'm going to speak to the first point, to answer your question on how an interpretive clause is going to look with respect to balancing individual collective rights when it comes to an interpretive provision for human rights protection. But before I do, there's the issue of whether there has been consultation or not since 1977, when the Canadian Human Rights Act purposely exempted the Indian Act, and also on-reserve, by virtue of the problems that were encountered in the Bill C-31 provision.
I know that's the information that's been presented. Those are the reasons the exemption was stated in the first place. By that exemption, Canada assured first nations people that any amendments to the act would be done with full consultation with the people. We do not see that there has been full consultation when the consultation to this date has only been done with national political organizations or a number of other groups. From the information you provided, we don't know who has been consulted, because it has not been done with our communities and does not meet the test of consultation for pre-planned, informed consent that was stated previously.
Looking at the interpretive provision, we are not going to be able to provide you with an answer today on what the specific elements should be with respect to a provision to look at an interpretive clause, to look at the balancing of human rights, and at our individual and collective rights. That in itself requires proper research, consultation, and discussion from us as well and looking at it as a component of the necessity for consultation.
That is our answer to that question, and I hope I have properly heard the question. Thank you.