Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
It has been a long time since I've been before the Standing Committee on Aboriginal Affairs. I've been working as a lawyer in regard to various Indian rights and claims for 43 years now. I was involved with the James Bay and Northern Quebec Agreement. Prior to that I had quite a huge battle with the Quebec government, the federal government, and Hydro-Québec.
This is a culmination of a very long quest for the Crees of Oujé-Bougoumou. As Mr. Namagoose has just told you, Chief Wapachee and Mr. Abel Bosum, who was chief for quite a while during the long trek, are out practising their traditional way of life. Unfortunately, you just have me as the witness for Oujé-Bougoumou. But I have been intimately involved in virtually every step of the way since the early 1980s.
It's not often that I can commend the justice department, because I've been locked in vicious battles with Canada throughout the land, in litigation in particular. In this instance, certainly in the last number of years, there has been exemplary cooperation. I point this out to your committee because sometimes, if the initiative were to come from Canada rather than having to come all the time from the aboriginal peoples, you might be amazed at the results.
Often Canada has a defensive position because it's attacked in court. Usually people go to court because they just can't come to agreements or compromises, because the parties are too far apart in principle. I suggest to your committee, in its work, that you consider asking the Department of Justice whether it shouldn't be taking a real advocacy role far more often. By advocacy role, I mean initiating the process. Don't wait for the aboriginal peoples, and for people to say, “Well, we're too far apart.” That's a personal recommendation that I've been wanting to make for a long time.
This is an example. The Oujé-Bougoumou were scattered throughout northern Quebec.
I believe that the Bloc Québécois members are the ones most concerned here because this involves their territory. They know that none of these battles were easy.
No one recognized them — except for the Cree Nation. Since the 1980s, they have made tremendous efforts to integrate themselves, to fit under the James Bay and Northern Quebec Agreement, along with their brothers and sisters from the other communities.
In terminating, I want to thank, this very rare time, the lawyers from the Department of Justice and the external lawyer, Ms. Deborah Corber, whom the Department of Justice hired. These were tough technical positions to have to try to refine in legalese, or legal language, but they accomplished it, and in a cooperative spirit. Maybe this is a new dawn, as I'm about to trod off to other areas, but certainly I think that one of the keys to better solutions for relationships between Canada and the aboriginal peoples of Canada is a cooperative spirit, which is exemplified here, in regard to the Department of Justice and the Government of Canada as a whole.
With that, and reiterating what Mr. Namagoose has said in his presentation, I will say that Oujé-Bougoumou is strongly in favour of Bill C-28 . Have no doubt about it, they've been wanting to have this day come--and the day when Bill C-28 will be, hopefully, proclaimed into law--for a long time. The complementary agreement is virtually finished. You see the parallel in the complementary agreement and Bill C-28. Parliament will have the chance, when it is filed in Parliament, for approval through a negative resolution to review the complementary agreement if there are any concerns whatsoever with it.
Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. It is indeed a pleasure to come back.