Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Just so that we perhaps are helped in our role here as legislators, I would like the government to provide me and members of the committee with the rationale as to why, in their view, these amendments should not be adopted. I'm hoping we can go beyond procedures. Let's have some substantives so that when we get to them....
I'm not quite giving notice here, Mr. Chairman, that I might move these, but I would hope that in the exercise we're going to be engaging in the week after next, once we get to the clause-by-clause, these amendments as they've been presented to us could be addressed on a substantive front. I'm quite prepared to be convinced that they shouldn't be, but on the other hand, I would need that convincing.
I just give notice, so to speak, that I may be moving these, so that we get that rationale. I understand that some of these may be on a procedural front beyond the scope, or maybe not; we'd have to argue that at the time. So that's just to entrer en matière.
There's one area I have brought up that Monsieur Labelle mentioned here, and I'd like to use whatever little time I've got to explore. My concern as a legislator is that this bill would encompass all the provincial laws and regulations. And the notion that the Government of Canada has a constitutional obligation—way and beyond the fiduciary ones—vis-à-vis first nations doesn't necessarily translate in provincial law. And provincial law may not have been prepared and written and conceived with the constitutional obligations of the Government of Canada via-à-vis aboriginal nations, when they were preparing laws about how to handle their oil and gas resources.
So how can we reconcile the two? Is the government asking us as legislators to put on a blindfold and say, yes, we'll trust that all provincial regulations, all provincial laws, will treat aboriginal rights appropriately?
Perhaps you would comment on that, please.