-I will be pleased to accept the invitation and I will not need a passport or visa to go there. I intend to go and see for myself whether this is really true, because people who go fishing often like to brag about the fish they caught, and when they do not have a photograph, they often say the fish was that long. I intend to find out whether what they said about fish weighing 25 pounds is true, and I promise to get back to the House on this and tell you whether there was some truth in all this.
Oral traditions are also a very important part of their heritage. Nowadays, we have the tendency to say: I'm buying a house. Now, I would like to see what the last contract, the contract with the previous owner, looked like". They, however, have an oral tradition. We used to have that in our society as well, a long time ago, but today, that has been lost as a result of our whole legal perspective. But to them, oral traditions are very important.
They often have agreements without having a contract as such. As far as their heritage is concerned, they reserve the right to emphasize such agreements, and I think they are right. There will be a water management board, because the waters of the Yukon are very special. There is very little pollution in the Yukon, and some people would like to take advantage of this. For instance, our American friends might want to import water. This is something we are hearing more and more in some parts of the United States where the water table is going down. People often talk about diverting certain waterways to try and get more water.
The agreement states that as far as domestic needs are concerned, there is no problem. However, to handle specific needs, the people in the Yukon decided to set up a water management board. To me that is not a bureaucracy, because one-third of the board will consist of members appointed among aboriginal people, which is one way for aboriginal people to control their own affairs.
We see this as a way to stop having all the decisions made by Ottawa and then transmitted to regional headquarters and from there to the Indians or aboriginal peoples or First Nations. And now, the government says the will boards will be created.
You want boards to protect your waterways and your environment, so the government will ensure that most of the people on those boards will be local people who are knowledgeable about the area.
I do not think we are getting a new bureaucracy as much as more effective management, because these will be local people who know their area, and we hope this will help to dismantle the Department of Indian Affairs and the Indian Act as soon as possible, and what the people of the Yukon proposed is a step in the right direction. As I said earlier, there are provisions on fish and wildlife on class A lands where they will have exclusive harvesting privileges. The agreement maintains 70 per cent of the trap lines, which was very important for them because this is one of their traditional activities.
Forestry is also an interesting area, and here I would like to draw an analogy, using forestry as an example. Aboriginal people often say that they see the world as a big forest. In a forest, there are many kinds of trees, like pine and maple, and they often say that the way they see the forest is more or less the way they see society. I wanted to draw this analogy, because to them, the forest is a vital resource, and the fact that this resource is also included in the agreement means that these people will have better control over their forest resources. I mentioned economic development, and the hon. member on the government side also raised the matter of transboundary agreements. These people will be able to take a part in transboundary agreements. For instance, as I said before, we have the Porcupine caribou herd, and these herds do not necessarily stay within certain borders. Since for aboriginal people, the caribou is part and parcel of their traditions, it is important for them to participate in discussions on transboundary agreements and the Porcupine caribou herd.
Incidentally, we must conclude agreements with the Americans because the caribou herds that migrate through the Yukon Territory spend part of the year in Alaska, and the Americans are thinking very seriously about developing Alaska's oil and mineral resources. That is why it is important for First Nations in the Yukon to be able to participate in transboundary agreements. An example that comes immediately to mind is the caribou herds.
In concluding, I would like to say once again that I want to congratulate the First Nations of Yukon on signing the agreement. And I want to say to them that the Bloc Quebecois supports Bill C-33. And as I said earlier, these people stood their ground, they were painstaking and stubborn and probably very hard on the federal negotiators who, I am sure, returned the compliment, and in spite of all that, there was no hostility. And as I said when we considered Bill C-34, and I say it again now, with respect to Bill C-33, there are aboriginal peoples that
would be well advised to follow the example of the people of the Yukon and the First Nations of the Yukon and persevere in their land claims and their demands for self-government, but peacefully, which can be very difficult when it comes time to negotiate.
However, taking up arms in a modern society, whether we are talking about aboriginal people or white people, is hardly if at all acceptable, and these people have demonstrated in what will become another historic turning point, that thanks to their perseverance and their ability to negotiate, they concluded an agreement that was satisfactory to all concerned, an agreement that was welcomed by many people in the Yukon, including the territorial government and mining companies involved in mining exploration in the Yukon.
Once again, these people have demonstrated that co-operation exists in the Yukon. They made that clear, and I think we have cause to welcome Bill C-33.
In concluding, I want to say to the people of the Yukon that they can count on the support of the Bloc Quebecois for the passage of Bill C-33.