Madam Speaker, I thank the hon. member for Skeena for his speech. I have first of all a comment for the member for Calgary East, the previous speaker for the Reform Party.
We say in French he made une affirmation gratuite. I do not know how to translate it. It could be an unfounded assertion or misleading affirmation about the number of people sitting on the board, the next board and a future board. He talked about patronage. I want to let him know that on the planning board there will be five members for the Gwich'in and the Sahtu. There will be two members from the Gwich'in, there will be two members from the government, one coming from the federal government and the other one coming from the Northwest Territories government, and the four will name a president.
On the next one, the land and water board, there will be seventeen members. Of the seventeen members five will come from the Gwich'in, five will come from the Sahtu and three will be from the first nations, the Dogrib, the Deh Cho and the people from treaty No. 8 who are not part of the negotiations right now, and three other ones will be from governments, two from the federal government and one from the Northwest Territories government. That means we will have two members from the federal government and those sixteen will name a president.
On the environment impact assessment and review board, there will be eleven members, five from first nations, five from government and from the government there will be three from the federal government.
If we are looking at what this government has done as nomination for the Nunavik area we have named dozens and dozens of people for nomination there. If we named them it is because they are good people. They are dedicated people and competent people. All the nominations we have done for the Northwest Territories are very good nominations. What the member said before is really misleading the House.
The member for Skeena mentioned that he would like to have first nations as a full and equal partner. My question is very easy. Does he mean by full and equal partner that he and his party do not recognize the treaty signed between the first nations and the governments? Does he mean that equal and full partner means assimilation? Is this why the Reform Party is voting against the initiative to give aboriginal control over their future?