Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Good morning, Chief Buffalo, Mr. Seymour, and Ms. Back-Skidders. It's good to have you here.
Chief Buffalo, you began your presentation by saying there is general agreement around this particular piece of legislation, but then when I listened to the rest of the presentation there seemed to arise some substantive concerns around this particular piece of legislation. You can correct me if I'm wrong, but I heard that there were concerns about the legislation being hurried, that there could have been more consultation, that from the AFN's perspective you want to see the regulations that pertain to this particular piece of legislation. I mean, the legislation enables the regulations to be made and incorporated. There were also concerns around the environmental protections, as I heard, and the incorporation of provincial laws being applied on reserve lands. The comment was made that it does not increase the first nations control or management substantively.
These would not seem to me to be unsubstantive or not important. They seem to be rather weighty types of concerns that have been expressed.
I'm just looking for some direction from you as to where we should go, because I'm sure you're aware that according to our schedule, we had intended to go to clause-by-clause today. I gather that's what was on our schedule. This certainly seems to be a little bit inconsistent with what the IRC has been making presentations about, certainly in my meeting with them. They seem to say that this legislation is not perfect, it is not everything that they wanted, but it's certainly something that they need and something they want to move forward on in a fairly expeditious manner. That is what they have said to me personally at meetings that I've had with them, and what they also said at committee. I would just like to see if there's some way we can reconcile these two different positions, if you can help me with that.
My second question is for Mr. Seymour. I have read what you presented to the committee, a financial incentive program. Is there anything in this legislation that would prevent the government or first nations that have an interest in oil and gas development from working together to implement this program, even though it's not incorporated in the legislation? Is there anything that would prevent this?
This seems to make common sense, to be able to allow first nations to gather the most out of their resources and to benefit in a broad way from oil and gas development on reserve, both, as you say, downstream and upstream. Is there anything that would prevent this program from going ahead if this weren't incorporated?
I'll just go to Chief Buffalo first, and then ask Mr. Seymour to answer secondly, if that's okay.
Thank you.