I'll do the best I can, Ms. Crowder, to answer that question.
In terms of what's happening out there and the legislative void, I noticed, in the media coverage that surrounded the September 29 announcement to start the consultation, that one channel at least had described this as a loophole in the law. I think it's a lot more than a loophole in the circumstance where we have 250,000 Canadian citizens, first nation citizens, women, who are living without the protection of the same matrimonial property laws as apply to other Canadian women. I regard this as a very serious human rights issue that needs to be addressed and remedied quickly. I said this before when I was here and I'll say it again: I appeal across party lines to every single parliamentarian who's at this table to help us make sure this initiative works, because it is not acceptable in Canada in 2006 that we have a quarter of a million women who don't have the same rights as other off-reserve Canadian women.
At present, there is some limited progress being made. There are 630 first nations across Canada, and as I recall, 11 have adopted matrimonial property regimes that are consistent with laws of provincial application. Most of the current modern self-government regimes that are being negotiated as part of land claim settlements deal with the issue of matrimonial property, but not even all of those actually deal with the issue. Some of them deal with it by reference to provincial laws, some deal with it just by silence, frankly, and some of have adopted first-nation-specific codes.
So there's a range of alternatives being pursued, but at the end of the day, what we're looking for in this step forward is a law of general application that will apply, pending first nations putting in place their own matrimonial property regime that's consistent with the charter and consistent in a general way with the equilibrium and balance that we see in provincial matrimonial property legislation.