Thank you.
I'm Bertha Rabesca Zoe.
Canada, because of devolution, is making certain amendments to federal legislation, and GNWT is developing and drafting mirror legislation so that devolution can happen.
We're quite involved in that work, those of us who are parties and technical people and persons and legal counsels from the various groups involved in that process. All the various drafts of the Territorial Lands Act, the Northwest Territories Waters Act, and the Northwest Territories Act were shared with us. But in all of our work with Canada and GNWT—mostly with Canada—we have always maintained, as aboriginal parties and aboriginal groups and governments in the Northwest Territories, that MVRMA is a totally different process, because we've been very concerned about the proposed amendments and particularly the restructuring of the board.
We didn't see the bundling of the bills until it was introduced in Parliament. I've been involved in the work on both devolution and the MVRMA, so I have first-hand information and knowledge about that process. As a matter of fact the October session we attended—and we put this on record—wasn't a consultation session as far as we are concerned because the key and fundamental principles of working together in a collaborative manner in that process were totally ignored. That's the process we wanted to embark on. In that October session I asked the federal officials who were there doing the presentation whether those bills would be bundled as an omnibus bill, and we were never given a response as to what they would do. So we didn't know they would be bundled until they were introduced into Parliament as Bill C-15.
Mahsi.