Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I appreciate all the witnesses who've come before us today. Clearly, you've brought a lot of good testimony to our committee, and I'm very excited to take your recommendations as we continue with the work we're doing. As everyone knows, this is a very important bill.
In the previous rendition of the way the Government of Canada dealt with specific claims, many argued that we were in fact the judge and jury and final arbiter of all things that had to do with specific claims. So there was a massive call for us to remove that conflict of interest, and thankfully, our government has proceeded with this bill. After what has turned out to be quite a fruitful consultation with the national chief and the Assembly of First Nations, we have a bill before us today.
Some testimony has indicated that there could be improvements to all bills before this House, so I'm glad to hear that you've brought forward a number of recommendations. I'm especially pleased to read in your conclusions that Bill C-30 represents a significant and important improvement over Bill C-6, which was introduced by the previous Liberal government. We believe that the modifications suggested, with further clarification, will help it become further strengthened. I'm also glad that you're suggesting to this committee that it continue its all-party support of the initiative so that we do not lose this opportunity, as you've written in your conclusion. We clearly have a lot of common ground, and I appreciate the testimony you've provided so far.
One area, though, on which I would like to continue the discussion is in the section on page 4 of your brief on the provision of reserved lands. It is in relation to paragraph 14(1)(c). You talk about how the provision of reserve lands, including unilateral undertakings, might not account for or properly deal with specific first nations that don't currently have reserve land but were perhaps promised reserve land at previous times in history.
This is the current language within the bill, which we've already talked about:
a breach of a legal obligation arising from the Crown’s provision of reserve lands, including unilateral undertakings that give rise to a fiduciary obligation at law, or its administration of reserve lands, Indian moneys or other assets of the First Nation
In defence of the drafting, it is felt by the government that those situations you've referred to would be covered under this particular section. So if you could give me more testimony as to why you don't think that's the case, that would be appreciated.