This particular amendment came out of a discussion that was held when the board had informal meetings in Yellowknife. The parliamentary secretary referred to this. He said, “We have given consideration to your requests about the membership on the board, and we have included that we will take into account traditional knowledge when we're appointing the members from particular regions”.
Why is this important? It's important because the tradition in the north, and the tradition in the legislation of these boards, is that first nations in their regions have rights of nomination of candidates for these boards. What's happened with this board is there are no rights of nomination.
That's quite different from the Yukon. The surface rights board in the Yukon has a requirement that half the members be aboriginal. What we're seeing here is that the first nations people in the Northwest Territories haven't been given the same level of consideration as the Yukon legislation gave to the aboriginal people in the Yukon.
That's a problem, and I think the first nations correctly identified it as a problem. I'm sure that in the consultation processes much was heard about this. I would consider it part of our unique development in the Northwest Territories, and a development that's supported by probably the vast majority of the residents in the north, that regional self-governments have authority in their regions.
That has to be expressed through a variety of means. When you're in the Sahtu region, the Sahtu people have a level of authority over land and resources in that region. When you're in the Gwich'in region, the same applies. When you're in the Tlicho region, the same applies.
What we have here is an attempt by the government to offer a morsel to the appointment of these people in the region. They put into the legislation that there's going to be a requirement in respect of land, the environment, “or” aboriginal traditional knowledge.
With this amendment, I have made it mandatory that aboriginal traditional knowledge be part of it, as was suggested by the parliamentary secretary in Yellowknife, when he made a presentation on it to the Gwich'in representative there.
I think this is the only part of this legislation that respects the trend and, might I say, the developing constitutional idea, for the Northwest Territories. It's an important distinction, this one word “or” versus “and”.