Meegwetch, Madame Chair.
[Member speaks in Cree]
Those were words of thanks.
It's certainly a privilege to have you before this committee. A lot of experience stems from this province in treaty negotiations and jurisprudence that is important for this country.
I want to start, because we touched on it briefly, with the whole issue of extinguishment. I'm from northern Quebec, where we signed the first modern treaty back in 1975, and I've always had a hard time reading section 2.1 of the James Bay and Northern Quebec Agreement whereby the Cree and the Inuit surrendered, ceded, and conveyed all of their rights in and to land.
I'm not sure that this provision is constitutional; such is my view. Certainly the Human Rights Committee back in 1999 declared that the extinguishment clause that we find in the James Bay and Northern Quebec Agreement was contrary to the right to self-determination. That's as early as 1999. I understand the rationale behind such a provision, but I want to hear your thoughts. Are there any other models that you would suggest for achieving the certainty that governments usually ask for?