Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I'd like to thank the witnesses for coming in.
I'm looking over your map of the Akaitcho and the Athabasca Dene in northern Saskatchewan and at just how the negotiation process takes place.
One of the things that's very interesting, and which I'm glad my colleague mentioned, is the strategy for saving the woodland caribou. We're talking about economic development, and we'd like to go further with the study, but with the court case—and I don't think my colleague is fully briefed on this—any projected development, especially in northern Saskatchewan, will not happen because of the woodland caribou strategy. Because 65% of the area has to be pristine for the caribou, for any development to take place in northern Saskatchewan.... It means no roads for first nations in northern Saskatchewan, no mines, no dams, no nuclear storage.
I'm very passionate about this issue. I'd be glad to debate it anytime, anywhere. I looked at the NDP platform in the provincial election, where they're going to do revenue sharing.... But there's not going to be any revenue in the province of Saskatchewan for first nations. They talk the story here and I get really frustrated about this, because as for what the strategy does with the first nations in northern Saskatchewan, the Alberta first nations took on the court case without consulting with northern Saskatchewan, and now they're going to be losing out on any type of economic development to help better themselves.
The Athabasca Dene in northern Saskatchewan are undergoing a negotiation process with the federal government and Northwest Territories, Nunavut, and Manitoba, which is in out-of-court negotiations right now. I'd like to have further clarification on why some of these negotiation processes take so long.
Maybe we can start with the chief negotiator. Please explain the process, if you don't mind.