Mr. Speaker, I would be pleased to answer the two points. The first is that is appropriate to create a lame duck government in the last year of any government's term. This is so inappropriate.
This is a process that has spanned two governments. It is a process that began in the last year of a Social Credit government. It was picked up by an NDP government and continues to be carried on. It occurred because it was good public policy. Obviously, good public policy will be seen to be such and it must be a process that can be carried on.
If a provincial government should stop in a tripartite process with another level of government and with a group of people duly set up by their own people to negotiate in good faith, then when the provincial government does that in the last year of its mandate and the federal government does that in the last year of its mandate, once in every three years will we have any negotiation at any signatory. It makes every single level of government ineffective.
It also makes the aboriginal people, who are the third party negotiating with them, wonder whether this is a worthwhile process at all. It makes a mockery of any type of negotiated process.
Second, the hon. member referred to what Mr. Weisgerber said and to the changes in the process of the Nisga'a treaty sinceMr. Weisgerber had set it up. He is right.
What Mr. Weisgerber did say, and I listened carefully to the quote, is not that we stop the process but that we continue to refine it as we find flaws in it. That is extremely appropriate.
What this member is asking is that we stop the process that has been on the table. Negotiations are going on. People may come to a conclusion any moment now and we must ignore all of the year's work that has been done to get to that point. This does not make any sense to me. It is an ineffective way for any government, any negotiations to take place.