Thank you.
The way that the Similkameen people have been implementing our own laws.... We have an oral tradition, and one of the barriers that we face is the recording of our oral tradition and documenting that.
I think one of the reasons it's so important in terms of land restitution is it is the cornerstone of governance and protection of our land bases. Where we sit now, we see through a number of cases—Blueberry and others—that the cumulative impacts that have degraded the land base, the treaty and indigenous rights and title that have come from this lack of management or mismanagement of both federal and provincial governments have resulted in extensive degradation.
The other issue we see related to the federal or provincial legal application of their law is there is a bias toward industry and toward development. There isn't the consideration of the cost of degradation in terms of biodiversity, but the health costs that come from that.
Indigenous law brings to the forefront, I believe, the concepts of sustainability. It doesn't throw out the concept of modern and historic economic models, but it allows us to bring those into some level of balance where today, we are.... A lot of times, when we're talking about protection and environmental restoration or protection, usually those concepts are thrown out in the interests of the public, whether those are housing or business. There's no clear balance between the management for biodiversity and the management for economic gain and benefit.
Indigenous law, I believe, brings that concept of sustainability and biodiversity to the forefront.