Thank you, Mr. Chair.
To Mr. Battiste's comments, getting this right is very important. That's been the challenge the whole way through with the relationship between indigenous people and Canada. It has always been about what the words mean, what the treaties mean and what our relationship looks like—all of these kinds of things.
As to the ways of knowing he talks about, the reality is that we are dealing with the Constitution Act, 1982. That's right in this section of the bill, affirmed by the section 35 rights of the Constitution Act, 1982. How does that fit into this? Who is part of a Métis government? The Constitution Act talks about Métis peoples, and it states:
treaty rights includes rights that now exist by way of land claims agreements or may be so acquired.
I think this bill fits in the part where it says “or may be so acquired”, although this isn't a land claim. Maybe Mr. Battiste can explain a bit more this not being a land claim and how we get “or may be so acquired”. That's how I read section 35 of the Constitution. That's what we're trying to flesh out here. What does section 35 mean? What is the relationship between Canada and the Métis peoples? What does that relationship look like? That's what this bill is trying to do.
We want to make sure, as we heard at the last meeting, that section 8... There are two sections. We heard that section 8 is the crux of the whole matter. It's kind of the crux of the whole bill. The Government of Canada is recognizing a Métis government, or in this case three Métis governments, because that's what's laid out in section 1 of this bill. We have to get that right.
Is that the right terminology? Does that fit within section 35? How are we going to go forward on this?
Thank you, Mr. Chair.