I was reminded of a story about the Quebec hydro dam and the James Bay and Northern Quebec Agreement. I think that was the first modern land claims agreement Canada had with a first nation or an indigenous rights-holding group. That first one was truly co-developed, I understand. There were true negotiations whereby the indigenous, Cree and Inuit peoples in that area were able to negotiate an agreement that continues to have impacts on their communities.
Since that agreement, with a lot of the subsequent land claims agreements that happened afterward with other indigenous groups, the federal government learned with each negotiation to water them down. For example, to get the Nunavut Land Claims Agreement, we had to extinguish some of our rights.
I'm wondering about learning from those kinds of lessons. If this amendment were to go through—without talking about delay, but talking about the dialogue and the content of that dialogue—what kind of impact would it have on first nations governing bodies that have not been able to rightfully exercise their rights as first nations governing bodies because they aren't being given the equal platform to be first nations governing bodies?