Madam Speaker, I want to say at the outset that I have great respect for my colleague. He has considerable experience and is well respected in this House.
The concern our party has raised with respect to the Tlicho agreement and the Tlicho legislation is not directed at the Tlicho people. The Tlicho people have been doing what any other group or any other first nation would do. They have been trying to negotiate the best deal possible for them.
The concerns we have raised concern the failure of the Government of Canada to invent institutions and make government arrangements that protect and advance the interests of Canada. That is the government's responsibility, not the responsibility of the Tlicho people at the negotiating table. It should be the responsibility of the Government of Canada through the executive branch to advance the interests of the government.
Specifically, in response to my learned colleague's comments, this entire debate about public government versus racially based self-government, these are not just concerns of the Conservative Party of Canada. These find their expression in the executive approval under which these negotiations were started in 1995.
What the cabinet was told and agreed with at that time was that because of the demographic mix in the Northwest Territories, like Nunavut, it was possible, if it were done correctly, to create public government institutions that would advance the interests of all Canadians without regard to race.
I fear that where we are headed with all of this is to a system where Canadian citizens have different status depending upon whether they are Caucasian or a Métis citizen on the one hand, or a registered Indian citizen in the north on the other.
That is not the framework upon which our success as a country has been founded. That is clearly where this agreement is taking us. Mark my words, this will prove in time to have been in error.