Mr. Chairman, ladies and gentlemen, good afternoon. Thank you for welcoming us.
I do not think this is the place to enter into a legal debate, as the member was just saying. He was making a distinction between “Consultation” and “consultation”, however. The only comment I would have for the committee—and you just mentioned it as well—is that I do not know how many times we have found ourselves before a committee like this one to discuss the issue of consultations. Furthermore, I could say the same thing for the provincial legislative assembly as well.
Is it a moral or a legal obligation to consult? I will not enter into that debate, but I would appreciate not being accused again of wanting to be consulted left, right and centre. You referred to the document that we have included, the Consultation Protocol that was inspired by the First Nations of Quebec and Labrador Sustainable Development Strategy. This protocol is as broad in scope as the sustainable development strategy. It therefore covers all issues related to the territory, to culture, etc.
We attempted to set minimal conditions in order to avoid finding ourselves in a situation where our people would ask the chief where this initiative came from, because they were not consulted. We would find ourselves once again, as was the case with the bill we are discussing today, no doubt with... I'm not searching for an explanation either. If there are discussions to be held between first nations, we will hold them with all of the goodwill in the world, because these are issues that concern first nations among themselves above all.
However, everyone should try and make an effort—I believe we made some effort—to avoid certain situations, and so that the chiefs from Quebec and Labrador will not find themselves at a particular meeting being obliged to comment on a document. Once again, the issue is not to determine the circumstances that have resulted in our being here today. Having said that, we could have talked about other bills, some of which will come before this committee, that have the chiefs wondering when it was that they might have commented on those issues and when their counsel and they themselves might have consulted their people on the issue. The word “consultation” is a very broad term. We tried to do our best to clarify our thinking with this document. We are prepared to tackle it again, but I do not know how many times we have sent this consultation document to the governments we are dealing with.
Personally, as a representative of the First Nations of Quebec and Labrador, I think we have done our part of the work required in order to establish the processes of consultation, but we unfortunately find that it is still not enough.