Good afternoon, everybody. Welcome to meeting 18 of the Standing Committee on Aboriginal Affairs and Northern Development. We will be continuing to deal with Bill C-30, an act to establish the specific claims tribunal and to make consequential amendments to other acts.
As committee members will recall, we are receiving witnesses who come from umbrella organizations from different provinces and regions across the country. We have had delegations or individuals here from British Columbia, Ontario, Manitoba, and Saskatchewan. Today we will be hearing from some folks from Quebec, and possibly from Atlantic Canada—I'll get to that in a minute.
Then, on Thursday, we'll be finishing this round, with witnesses from Alberta and the territories.
Before I go to our guests from Quebec and Labrador today, I just want to let people know that our second panel, which was to be the Atlantic Policy Congress of First Nation Chiefs, is unable to make it. They're stuck in Halifax under a blanket of snow.
We were also to have Mr. Paul, from the Union of New Brunswick Indians. Is Mr. Paul here? I don't think he is. If Mr. Paul does not arrive—and I'm presuming he may very well be unavailable because of weather as well—we will add these individuals to the list of those who will be attending on Monday, March 31.
You'll recall that we left one meeting open at the end of this process as a makeup meeting for individuals or delegations who could not come to their allotted meeting. It turns out that was fortuitous, given that, hopefully, we'll be able to get the Atlantic Policy Congress folks here at that time.
I would suggest that we go ahead with panel A. If Mr. Paul arrives in the next hour, we will deal with him today. Obviously it would be less than ideal to have one of the Atlantic witnesses and not the others. On the other hand, it would seem a shame to have Mr. Paul come all the way to Ottawa and then not hear from him. So we will play that one by ear. If he does not arrive, then we will have just the one panel today.
As one more little bit of business, I understand, Monsieur Lemay, that you have a group of guests, and I wonder if you could tell the committee who has joined us here today.