Thank you, Mr. Chair, and I thank the witnesses for coming here today.
I will give just a little background about the region where I come from. It's in northern Saskatchewan, and about two-thirds of the province is in my constituency. We have the Athabasca chiefs, predominantly Dene; we also have the Métis. But they are dealing with the same issues of the overlap. When they're sitting down talking at the table, they're dealing with the Manitoba provincial government. They're dealing with the Cree in northern Manitoba. They're dealing with the Inuit and also with the Akaitcho in the Northwest Territories.
This agreement process has been going on for the past 10 years. They're actually able to resolve a lot of the overlap agreements and negotiations one on one, from community to community, and doing the process. Unfortunately, right now I think it's stalled because of one provincial government over the overlap issue on land quantum.
Now to get further into this, just to get some further clarification, if you don't mind, could you also give your opinion on how to proceed if agreement cannot be reached or if an otherwise successful negotiation may be delayed indefinitely until an agreement is reached? Or does there come a point when the treaty must move forward without unanimous support?