Thank you very much, Madam Chair, and thank you, Deputy Grand Chief and Ms. Fletcher, as well as the chiefs.
Reflecting on what Ms. Tilly O'Neill Gordon has said, I think it speaks to how this government has drafted a bill and simply doesn't understand the situation. Some of the grandparents that Chief Maracle was referring to in a house with 12 people, some of those grandparents may be 40 years old. They don't fit into the elder-infirm category. These are people who have been helping raise families.
I think, because the government doesn't understand that consultation means a two-way communication—send and receive—and because the government has refused to listen to Wendy Grant-John or to any of the overwhelming negative responses to this bill, and because of the debacle last week, to those of us on this side who have had experience on the Committee for Aboriginal Affairs and Northern Development it's very clear that sending a bill of this complexity to this committee that has no experience with legislation and no experience, expertise, or even cultural sensitivity to first nations, Inuit, and Métis people in Canada. Therefore I would like to move this morning:
That the Committee recommend to the House of Commons that Bill S-2, An Act respecting family homes situated on First Nation reserves and matrimonial interests or rights in or to structures and lands situated on those reserves, be referred to the Standing Committee on Aboriginal Affairs and Northern Development, and that the said committee report its findings to the House.
I don't think we can go on to clause-by-clause with this continual failure to listen to what's been said in terms of how this has to be. I don't care how much money you've spent on consultation. If you have not listened, it makes absolutely no sense that this wasn't done properly. Wendy Grant-John was very clear that without the non-legislative tools in place, this will not solve this problem.