Thank you.
I have two questions, really.
Throughout this legislation and these amendments, whenever lands or resources have been discussed, we've consistently stated that it's out of the scope of this legislation, because nowhere in the legislation does it talk about lands and resources. I'd say that about three or four times we've voted that this was out of scope because of that. I'm wondering how it is that now, in the last day of this, under a taxation clause, we're looking at adding an amendment that would possibly stop any kinds of future discussions or the evolving of a treaty.
I'm not a Métis person. I'm a first nations person, but I would have deep problems with members of this committee deciding what I, in my future, could negotiate with the Government of Canada. It seems deeply paternalistic, deeply problematic. While we have not talked about lands and resources in the past—and we've made sure we have really strong non-derogation clauses to ensure we're not infringing on first nations rights, resources or lands—this would take an additional step towards telling Métis what they could negotiate with our government in the future. For our committee to believe that we have the ability to do that, I think, is an affront to the Constitution, which doesn't create rights; it recognizes and affirms that these rights have existed all along.
Just to get ahead of ourselves a bit with the land back study, which I was delighted to read, we heard from the Métis about the land that they were dispossessed of with Métis scrips, some of the land claims they were promised in Saskatchewan and parts of Alberta. We'll be discussing that later on and making recommendations on what the Métis should be doing about getting their land back in terms of what was promised to them in original scrips—which are similar to treaties. This committee is getting in front of all that, saying that we as a committee believe we know best what this government and the Métis should be negotiating in the future and putting that in a taxation clause at the end of it.
I want to hear why this is admissible from our people who are here, but also from our technicians, our legal folks. What are their thoughts on our committee telling the government and the Métis people what they can negotiate in the future as a throw-in clause in this part of the clause-by-clause?