The Berger inquiry happened in the early seventies in the Northwest Territories and it actually happened because the Liberal government at the time was a minority government. They asked Justice Berger to travel throughout the Mackenzie Valley to speak to the Dene on the future of a potential pipeline. At the end of the day, after hearing everyone, Justice Berger decided that the issue of land claims needed to be dealt with, so he asked for a moratorium of 10 years.
As I said earlier, we still haven't settled. There are five communities out of 30 that have settled since then. That's why I'm saying it's going to take a long time. In the meantime there are ways to deal with the big questions. Those big questions are the following: Who has ownership of the resources? Who is receiving the lion's share of the wealth? Right now the resource revenue sharing goes generally to the federal government and some to the territorial government; very little goes to the first nation.
We can look at those big questions without solving the bigger picture, but I think we need to do that. We owe that to everyone to help stabilize the economy, to help stabilize the political future for all of us. In doing that, it then provides a different context to the whole discussion that takes place because the assumption right now is that Canada owns the resource and they have the right to go in and exploit. That whole question needs to be part of your equation that is looked at.