Mr. Speaker, to the few members of the Reform Party who are here listening as well, I would like to make a comment on the remarks made by the hon. member.
I thank the hon. member for his comments and his premise in terms of fiscal issues being outside the motion. The member for Skeena wanted to talk about self-government and the debate has gone in that direction for the past two hours.
I am familiar with the report of Mr. Richardson and I have looked at.
After checking the record, I find the testimony of the Auditor General of Canada to the Standing Committee on Aboriginal Affairs and Northern Development to be entirely inconsistent to the question I posed about land evaluations that far north in areas of Canada with that kind of space. I asked him what kind of acceptable accounting standards and practices would be used to make those kinds of categorizations and whether the Government of Canada was within its boundaries and properly understood those limits or boundaries with respect to those evaluations. I was told by the gentleman at that committee that we were indeed within those boundaries and it was acceptable according to the officials from the auditor general's department.
Who would the member believe, Mr. Richardson, who I do not know nor do I think anyone in the House knows, or the Auditor General of Canada? If he is an accountant, could he answer that?