Mr. Speaker, section 35 does not trigger section 25. Section 25 applies all across the country. It applies now; nothing changes. The Westbank agreement does not change anything. If there were a problem it would still be there, but there is no problem. Section 25 does not make people immune to the charter. The charter has to be sensitive to certain aboriginal rights.
The member mentioned in his speech that we have to go back to the act of Confederation of 1867 as a base. If we are to go back in history, then what does the member have to say about the royal proclamation of 1763 and the rights that came under it? Do we have to go back to that type of governance? What about before the royal proclamation when there were first nation governments on this continent for thousands of years and quite successful governments from their perspective? What about going back that far?
I do not think we can go back to an arbitrary point in time and say we have to have the number of governments that were specified at that time. Lawyers have already said that this does not create another level of government anyway.