Thank you for the question.
There are a number of issues created by the existence and recognition of aboriginal rights in our Constitution. It's not clear exactly what those rights are. They were entrenched in the Constitution in 1982, and governments ever since have been trying to negotiate some clarity around what they mean. They create issues around land title and the use of resources. They create issues around the rights to hunt, fish, trap, and so on. And they create a right to self-government, which has to be exercised within the framework of the Canadian Constitution.
We've tried to negotiate clarity with different aboriginal groups on all of those matters. Some groups have decided they want to settle the land issues first, often because economic development is the most pressing concern. They will come to the table and try to resolve the land title and what not, and then move on to self-government at a later stage.
Other groups decide--and it's really up to them--that they want to pursue the self-government issues, the creation of an aboriginal government at the same time. The best example of this would be the treaties we reached in British Columbia with the Tsawwassen community near Vancouver, or with the Maa-nulth communities on Vancouver Island, where it's a sort of a comprehensive package.
Some communities, especially those south of 60 that are Indian Act communities, are pursuing self-government, and there isn't really a land issue to resolve. There are cases of that in Saskatchewan, Manitoba, and others. And some people are only focusing on what's most important to their community, which might be education; that's the case in Nova Scotia. Or it might be child welfare, which is the case in Alberta.
We have to go at the pace of the first nations partners. It's great to get a comprehensive treaty, as we occasionally do, but sometimes it has to be more in sequence.
I don't know if that helps or not, but in the meanwhile, simply to make it interesting, the courts intervene two or three times a year with decisions that clarify what those section 35 rights may or may not mean.