Thank you Mr. Chair. I do appreciate the comments from Mr. Battiste and his efforts to try to get to consensus here. I guess I disagree a bit with the specific wording of this in what it.... I don't disagree with the intentions, but I'm not sure if the wording is quite sufficient.
I'd be curious how “connected” would be defined, versus “adjacency”. We've gone to lengths to remove “adjacency”. What is “connected”? I mean, water flows in many ways for great lengths. At what point would a river that runs through multiple provinces still be connected to a first nation or perhaps not connected to a first nation?
I think that creates some ambiguity. I don't think it's intended ambiguity on the part of the government, but it just concerns me that it could be the case.
Do you have thoughts on how “connected” would be defined? I hate to say “defined”, because we've been fighting about definitions for some time now, but I think it's an important point.