For the Haida Nation, over the history of the different processes, we have examined our options in working together with B.C. and Canada on land and aboriginal titles. The Haida Nation found that the modern treaty process, as it had been designed, didn't meet our interests, because we live on an island. We're isolated. We have no overlapping territory, and it's just the Haida Nation on the island. There's a long history, going back well over 14,000 years, of occupying and using all of the island. Much of the process before us, when it came to treaty, was designed around the extinguishment of part of our land in exchange for cash, and giving up some of our land in that process. That extinguishment component was unacceptable to our people.
We've moved forward on Gud ad T'alang HIGang.gulxa Tll Yahda, our reconciliation process, working government to government in a way we believe is more flexible and capable of evolving to meet the needs as the environment and political landscapes change.
We rejected the treaty process. A lot of it was around the need to spell out every single detail and word, work out everything, and look to ratify it. You've seen in many places that a lot of work goes into it, but you get to the end and things have changed a lot. The extinguishment and the process as designed just didn't fit our position and our needs. We've moved on this other path here of working government to government through reconciliation.