Thank you for those comments, and thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you to the guests for being here on this important day as we navigate this legislation.
Métis in the areas of Alberta, Saskatchewan and Ontario have been waiting for recognition from the federal government for generations. We've come very close. We're at the end of this legislation. We have 12 amendments done, a lot of them with collaborative support. However, we haven't moved past this in the last three meetings.
I understand the difficulty the Conservatives have in grasping this. I say the Conservatives because we're talking about indigenous governance. We're talking about indigenous ways of knowing, indigenous knowledge.
As a government, we've sat down with Métis and said, “We're going to codevelop this with you.” A lot of it is about a colonial government trying to understand indigenous ways of knowing. It's like trying to put a square peg in a round hole. It doesn't always mesh. There's the whole area of indigenous constitutional law, whether we're talking about communal or collective rights when we're talking about indigenous governments. These are very complicated things.
I ask the committee not to let perfect be the enemy of the good. This committee has been one of the most collaborative committees I've been a part of. We've done some amazing work together passing all kinds of amazing legislation. Over the past three meetings, for some reason, that has stopped. For some reason, we're unable to find ways to move forward.
Our government has put forward many different ways to do this. Our chair has suggested many ways to do this together, in the hopes of giving probably the best Christmas gift we can give by moving this legislation forward to the House or to the Senate to vote on it so we can get it done and generations of Métis don't have to wait any longer. We have fewer than a dozen amendments left, and government is supporting many of those amendments. We're very close.
The chair has offered some solutions to move past this amendment so that we can make progress on all of the things we agree on—and we do agree on a lot of things. When we're looking at this, there are lots of complicated things out there. That's why this legislation is codeveloped.
The first step of this journey is saying we recognize that Métis have the right to self-determination. We recognize that we don't have all the answers on membership, ratification and election process, but that's for them to decide. That's what UNDRIP says, which we've passed. We didn't define UNDRIP. My father was one of the codevelopers of UNDRIP. When they were looking at this key United Nations document, they couldn't come to a consensus on who indigenous people are, but they said that was okay; it was for indigenous people to decide. They passed it in the United Nations, and we've passed it as law in Canada.
We've hit a stumbling block for the last three meetings. We have plenty of stakeholders here today waiting for what almost seems like a Christmas miracle at this point, which is for us to get through one clause and get to the next things we agree on. The chair has said we should move forward on the things we do agree on and come back to this at the end. I think that's a perfectly acceptable way to move forward.
I really stress that we've had great collaboration at this committee. Let's not change that. Let's make sure we get this done. Let's not let perfect be the enemy of good. Let's get it to the Senate. There are several indigenous senators who I'm sure will have a lot to say about this. Let's get it to that point and let's make some progress on it today.