Mr. Speaker, I am sorry that the member opposite drew such bizarre conclusions from what he heard myself and the other Reform Party member talk about. The fact is the Canadian government resisted entering into a treaty with the aboriginal people of this area for some time, choosing to leave them live a traditional lifestyle and to not disrupt that way of life.
If one examines the history of the area, one also notes that it was the aboriginal people who on a number of occasions requested that the Canadian government enter into treaty with them. In fact, the leadership of the very communities that we speak of in this agreement put their signatures to treaty No. 11.
Therefore we had the situation where the federal government had no responsibility to the aboriginal people. It was the choice of the aboriginal people themselves. They chose to enter that agreement.