Thank you so much.
I want to second what my colleagues have said all around. I think we're very touched by your testimony, and very hopeful, too, particularly, Chief Baird, with the results of your treaty negotiations, and that you have, over 16 years, successfully negotiated a treaty.
We've been listening to testimony from numerous people, and we have heard some very startling things. We heard from women yesterday who went through the court system for 12 years and spent a lot of money, only to be told that there is no jurisdiction because they're on reserve lands.
We heard you today saying who wouldn't want to stay in their own home with their own children in their own community. I guess what we can do is go on about how much consultation was done: there was $8 million spent and 103 meetings.... We can go on about that. We can go on about the fact that there are billions of dollars spent, and whether it's for health, justice, or other programs and services throughout, we can say it will never be enough. We know that.
But having said all of that, what this bill tries to do is simply provide some jurisdictional legislation, so that the gap that has existed for 25 years.... For 25 years, if a woman experienced violence in the home on reserve, she had no right to stay in her own home with her own children, to be in her own community; she had to leave—and has been leaving, which has resulted in the host of other issues and problems you talked about. Many of us have worked in the downtown eastside, or in the cities, in shelters, etc.
The issue at hand is that we know no legislation is perfect—that was testimony we heard—and we know that protection orders save children's and women's lives. We also know that this is not an imposition of an act. It is to say that this should happen and that the first nations can develop their own acts within a certain timeframe, and that if they do not do so, this will be the concurrent act in place until they do so.
Here is my question to Chief Baird. You have negotiated over 16 years a treaty under which you now have concurrent jurisdiction. In your concurrent jurisdiction, you actually have matrimonial property rights, because you've accepted for now the provincial family act.
Why was that important you to?