Madam Speaker, I want to congratulate the government and the minister for the work they have done on the Nisga'a agreement. I also want to congratulate the people in the Nisga'a territory who have spent their whole life determined to complete this agreement. I think they deserve a great deal of respect and gratitude.
I just want to raise the issue of Bill C-31 in relationship to the comments my hon. colleague made. It is a very complicated process. We could have 13 categories of Indian people under different pieces of statutes and legislation. The system was a man made designed. It has its flaws in as much as there is the problem of those people who may have status who perhaps do not warrant it. However, we do not know that. I do not know that, because I have processed many applications.
I was adopted when I was nine years old. I lost my status. My grandfather signed treaty 11 as a chief. I lost my status because I was adopted by a non-treaty family, non-status. It took me a long time to get my status back.
There are many people out there. I want to know what the opinion is of my colleague on those people out there who I know are aboriginal, who have the background and whose parents were perhaps out trapping, hunting or visiting the nets, who are not registered. It is just a technical issue. They were de-Indianized or de-aboriginalized because they were not there to register. For that very simple fact, what happens to those people?