Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you, Minister, for presenting today.
I think most of us who have been following the issue for years were quite pleased to see that the government was moving forward and moving away from the previous government's position that they were looking at appealing this. However, this issue is very complex. It's very complicated.
I come from the Northwest Territories, where half of our population is aboriginal. We have eight aboriginal governments there. We still have a lot of issues around who belongs to what organization. We still have a lot of people who are being left out. I think that at some point all of our organizations will be self-governing and under self-rule and the Indian Act will no longer apply. We've already seen movement in the Tlicho government and in the community of Deline.
My concern is that if we don't do this now, it may not happen. We heard presentations today from a number of people who presented some very good research and very good arguments on why we should defer it. They talked about getting the bill right. We also heard from some of our colleagues who've said that they don't trust the government.
I'm not sure what will happen in the future. I know there are 35,000 people who are looking for this to move forward, and that number may grow. Realistically, if we don't do it now, how long would you anticipate that it's going to take to get it right, to deal with all the issues that are out there? I can't say that I know what all of them are. I'm not an expert in this field. What do we expect that assessment of 35,000 people to grow to? We're hearing that it has already grown by 150 people or more.