Editor's Note: Member spoke in Inuktitut.
Mr. Speaker, it is always a pleasure to hear people from all walks of life supporting land claims. I consider this a misnomer, but it is called land claims today. As far as we are concerned, we are not claiming the land; the land is already ours. For lack of a better word, we call it land claims.
I would like to comment briefly and then ask a question of the hon. member. There was some question about what the legal basis is for the B.C. Treaty Commission. The B.C. Treaty Commission is presently acting as an agent within the authority of the three parties, which are of course the Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development, the provincial government, and the aboriginal people. In order to obtain funding for negotiations, the government had to seek the necessary appropriations from Parliament, which it has done. To allay the fears that there is no legal basis for the commission, we can rest assured the commission does have a legal basis.
I will return to the land claims issue in British Columbia and some of the issues the hon. member was talking about. One thing we have managed to achieve in a very short space of time as aboriginal people is to establish that we are a force to be reckoned with. People with little tolerance for aboriginal issues have a problem with the existence of land claims.
It was not so long ago that a previous prime minister of our party questioned that very thing but quickly turned around and realized that we do have a basis for land claims. The Right Hon. Pierre Elliott Trudeau questioned that in the early 1960s but realized that we did have a basis for recognition of aboriginal rights. Since then it has been acknowledged that there is indeed a basis for the negotiation of land claims.
In the past, aboriginal people have always been at a disadvantage in that it seemed we did not have anything to negotiate with, whereas the government had everything at their disposal to negotiate with. Too late for a lot of us, we realized we had a lot more to negotiate with than we thought. There was no clear definition of who owned the land and held the title. As a result, a recognition of the fact that we were here precipitated the land claims negotiations in the 1970s. Today we have settled quite a number of those negotiations and are continuing to settle them.
Now we are just starting on British Columbia, which is only right. They are long overdue for justice. I must question whether justice will ever really be served at this late date to the aboriginal peoples of British Columbia because of other interests and the agreement beforehand of not dealing with privately owned lands. I have to wonder about all this.
I was just wondering if the hon. member could elaborate a little more on what his role was as the former chair of the aboriginal affairs committee. How did he see the positive benefits of land claims as relates to the aboriginal peoples across the land, more so maybe in the province of Saskatchewan.
I was in a conference this morning where they were discussing aboriginal forestry. I must admit that my knowledge of forestry is somewhat limited. I have very little knowledge of trees. Ask me about snow and how to define snow in 25 different ways and I can do that, but forestry is not my area of expertise. It looked like a very good program that was going on where they wanted to have joint ventures and co-management.
I was just wondering if the member might elaborate a little more on what co-management or joint venture in Saskatchewan is and whether it is in his area of expertise as a result of his chairmanship of the aboriginal affairs committee.