Mr. Speaker, not only did they nitpick the other day, and I have been kind to them, until this came up. I have been very nice to them. I complimented them on the good move last night by most of their party. The members who are here today put their points forward respectfully and now we get this.
As the member just said, speaker after speaker before Easter were not speaking to these points. They were just delaying it. We could have had this bill through before Easter. It could have been in the Senate now.
We do not want any excuse like this, that we are delaying the bill. Two aboriginal people just spoke. Those members are suggesting that the aboriginal people in the House should not speak to a bill that concerns them and I think that is terrible.
The member brought forward concerns. This is the record, as I said, earlier of the bill. I want to put these on the record and then ask my question of the member, so that the record shows that all the concerns on the bill have been answered.
In relation to section 25 being a right that cannot be overturned, once again the government's position is that this legislation does not convey any specific aboriginal right. Therefore that does not apply. In fact, even if it did in the bill, and this is very esoteric, but there is a specific technical court test that it has to pass and it still would not pass. Therefore that is not a concern.
The only other outstanding concern related to why we are getting rid of the Statutory Instruments Act and that type of protection. The Statutory Instruments Act requires that the deputy minister of justice and the chair of the Privy Council look at the bill again. That is just like the minister of Indian affairs. It is once again paternalistic. It is not allowing for full self-government. To balance it, we put a registry in the bill so there has to be a public registry that performs the same function.
As the House knows, last night I was personally very disappointed on the no vote on a similar bill, the Tlicho bill, by only one party. I will not say which one, we must be positive here. However there was a no vote on the Tlicho bill.
The member is a great champion of aboriginal rights. I want her to explain the advantages of self-government in the Westbank and Tlicho regimes and what this will do.
When we get these answers to the concerns and the first nations perspective on the record, then we are going to pass the bill.