Mr. Speaker, I listened with great interest to my colleague's discussion on this land claim issue.
I know from my time working with the Algonquin nation in Quebec on what was unceded aboriginal territory never covered by treaty, we had spent a great deal of time working on land claims research to deal with the outstanding land issues. One of the problems the Algonquians faced, and in fact one which first nations across the country face, is the government says it wants certainty, and what it means by certainty is the extinguishment of all land rights in exchange for a dollar figure or a certain amount of land. Yet these rights are guaranteed, first under the Constitution section 35 rights, and in court decision after court decision, including Delgamuukw, Haida, and Taku River.
We are now finding in our region a growing concern from industry. Industry wants to work with the first nation communities. Industry wants to work on the territories, but it is in a position where it cannot negotiate because the first nations cannot negotiate because the federal government as well as the Crown under the province are not at the table and they have been holding up these agreements. The tradition of the federal government with first nations was that if the first nations did not like it, they could take the government to court. Land agreements that could have been signed and moved forward were not signed. In fact there have been all kinds of question marks right across our northern territories.
Now industry is actually trying to move ahead in the vacuum where government should have been, as its fiduciary responsibility, trying to make agreements with first nations. There are first nations that want to move ahead because they need economic development as well, and yet they find themselves in a bind because the federal government and the provincial governments have been basically obstructing the process to resolve the issues.
I would like to ask the member whether she has seen this pattern across the country. What steps do we need to take to have a proactive government finally move forward so we can have not just certainty on the land for first nations maintaining their rights, but also proper economic development that they can partake in?