Mr. Speaker, part of the function we provide to not only ourselves in the House but to all Canadians is to educate our constituencies. My constituency has no first nations reserve on it, so a lot of people are not as knowledgeable as we all should become on these issues. That is why debate in Parliament and that type of question helps.
As my hon. colleague is aware, there are different ways and strategies to achieve self-government. It can be done through a treaty process where there are land claims. Last year the member's party, as well as the other parties in the House, supported self-government with land claims in various regions of the country.
It can be done at the treaty table, and we are moving forward across the country on some of these treaties. Modern treaties are a little more difficult than the historical treaties that preceded them, but essentially we are coming to better understandings and the government is relating in a better manner and changing mandates over time to achieve self-government.
For those areas of the country that are not covered or in negotiation at this time, the other way of building up the capacity to self-government is through what I would term sectoral self-government bills. In the House last year, for example, we had a money management statistical institution for statistical institutes. All parties in the House worked together collaboratively, both here and in committee, to move this area of capacity building and expertise forward.
Not every first nation has the ability to move immediately from A to Z. Sometimes we have to build a process. Not only that, we have to build the consent of the community to not only understand but to approve that process. Under self-government often there is movement outside of the Indian Act and that can be scary for some people. However, we have shown that it is economically and socially progressive and people are moving forward.
I am not saying that everything is wonderful. There is work to be done in all these areas. With the understanding of parliamentarians and Canadians, it can be done. First nations people are Canadians. They are citizens who aspire to the same quality of life that we aspire to in the country, but it is unequal right now.
The capacity building comes not only from the treaty process but from some of these bills. This is enabling legislation that has portions of that. I congratulate not only the Saskatchewan first nations but other first nations in Saskatchewan that have been supportive of the progress of this legislation. Maybe at some point in time we will be hearing from them also.
I hope that helps expand the hon. member's thoughts on this. I hope all of us can agree that this is productive work to help our first nations citizens. Helping first nations also helps all Canadians.