Madam Speaker, I am proud to put forward a substantial petition signed by thousands of first nations citizens in the province of Manitoba.
These citizens reject the government's first nations governance initiative as put forward by the minister of Indian affairs. They suspect it to be nothing more than a thinly veiled attempt to diminish or even extinguish their treaty rights.
The petitioners point out further that the consultation process that is going on with the first nations governance initiative is nothing more than a sham. They do not believe it meets the legal test of what broad consultation should really be. They argue that they will submit more signatures of citizens than the minister actually managed to reach in his consultation process.