[Editor's note: The witness speaks in his own language.]
I wanted to say my name is François Paulette. I'm a former chief. In the 1970s I became a chief when I was 21 years old. Around 1980, I resigned. I've been a regional chief. I've been involved with a number of treaty and aboriginal rights discussions north of the 60th parallel. I've been involved in the Indian Brotherhood, the Dene Nation, the Berger inquiry....
I just want to say I was involved in a court case, Paulette et al. v. The Queen. I claimed we had prior ownership of territory in the Northwest Territories of over 450,000 square miles of land. That milestone ruling opened a lot of doors for us in the discussion of how to settle outstanding claims north of 60.
I'm from the Treaty 8 area. I've also been involved with the Bourque commission, the constitutional development in the Northwest Territories. I've also been involved with the renewal commission of the AFN and I still continue to advise and work with the national chiefs.
Quite recently I've also been helping protect areas of the Dene north of 60, particularly the national park on the east arm of Great Slave Lake. I've been attending a lot of international conferences dealing with the environment and the protection of Mother Earth.
I've also been involved in this joint task force from the beginning. I must say that from where it's been to where it's at today, there've been a lot of compromises on the way, and we're dealing with legislation before us that may not meet where we left off with the joint task force report in the late 1990s. Treaties 8 and 11 in the Northwest Territories address very specifically that we were involved in non-extinguishment and non-surrender treaties by peace and friendship, that we are to live side by side. Also, people today, when we talk about our land, that's what we talk about. When we say this in my language, it means we cannot really put a price tag on this land we are talking about.
Land is foremost in importance to us. It's the centre of our civilization and our existence. North of 60, as you know, a lot of exploration goes on, and the first thing these big companies that come here want is land. Canada leased them permits to look for these rich resources north of 60.
I want to go back to the national chiefs issue. In Bill C-30 you talk about cash only. I think that really deviates from our principle of talking about land. There's a cap of $150 million. If there is a cap on that and we go over that, what are the options? What are the alternatives? One of the foremost for us is land. We need to go there. We need to be honest and up front, because this discussion on legislation is dealing with parts of treaties.
The other thing I must add is that provincial participation in this process is not there, and that will definitely create a lot of..... Particularly land needs to be addressed up front, because people south of the 60th parallel have to deal with provinces. Since NRTA 1930, the transfer of land has been in the hands of the province, and many times the provinces have a tough time surrendering these rich resources in their territory. So we need to look at that.
I also wanted to say that today we're going through Bill C-30, but if we had the political will, if Canada had the political will, we probably would have dealt with all these outstanding claims. But we're having to resort to legislation to review these outstanding claims.
With that, I just want to thank the committee for listening. I know that we have a very short time here. I want to thank you all for listening to me.