Liberal to the core, Madam Chair.
Thank you, and good afternoon to our witnesses, Ms. Abbott and Ms. Woods. I'm certainly looking forward to your full brief and going through it in a bit more detail.
This is a significant piece of legislation, and one that will impact quite significantly on first nations people and the resolution of outstanding land claims. You touched on a couple of issues that I want you to comment on a little further.
The tribunal cannot award anything outside of cash, in terms of a cash settlement. It doesn't deal with land as such. Once you take a cash settlement, you basically have to quit your claim to certain lands that may be in dispute, for instance, and then you may have to go to the province in order to establish a claim or to take the province or some other interest to court. I find it a bit contradictory if you've already quit your claim and you've taken the compensation. I find that land in itself is a very fundamental issue to aboriginal peoples throughout the country, whether they're in comprehensive claims or in specific claim situations.
So this is my first question. What is your sense of that, that even if you go through the negotiated process or if you go through the tribunal specifically, you cannot be compensated in terms of lands, you can only be compensated in terms of cash?
The government purports that this bill is going to speed up resolution of claims, but it can still take six years from the time the government says, okay, you submit your information, we'll take three years to assess it and see if we're going to accept or validate the claim and another three years for negotiations, unless both parties agree and say, okay, we're quitting this, we're going to go to the tribunal. So that's my second question.
My third question is this. I'm of the understanding that first nations had a direct say in the appointment of judges or adjudicators or people at the tribunal level under Bill C-6. Under this particular piece of legislation, it only says that we may talk to the grand chief of the Assembly of First Nations. There's no dual role for each to recommend. As I understand it, under Bill C-6, there would be three people sitting in judgment on a specific claim, whereas under this particular legislation, there's only one judge. How do you feel about those changes, those specific instances of Bill C-30?