I am glad to hear that there have been discussions about ensuring that indigenous rights are protected, because I think as we all know, we are frequently deprived of our rights. Frequently we experience the violation of our indigenous rights, so I'm glad to hear that there has been a discussion and that there was at least some effort to make sure that in the preamble we have this council guided by UNDRIP. One of the amendments I will be suggesting is to make sure that it's also in the legislation so that there's a signal to the council that promoting and protecting indigenous people's rights must be a form of the work the council does, in addition to monitoring and reporting on policies and programs.
I have a couple of quick questions. These are more for guidance for legal drafters.
A couple of gaps exist in the bill: the lack of a definition for “elder” and the lack of a definition for “survivor”. I think we'll need to get a better sense of how to ensure we're reflecting important indigenous people's views, especially when it comes to identifying who elders might be and how to make sure we're identifying survivors who need to be heard by this council.
I wonder if you could provide some guidance as to what the legislative drafters will consider for elders and survivors.