Mr. Speaker, those are good questions, obviously. They came up at committee. There was extensive consultation.
This legislation was put together in a collaborative way with the Assembly of First Nations. The legislation went through an extensive clause by clause drafting process working with the Assembly of First Nations to make the bill as good as possible. That being said, the committee has made some suggestions and some amendments and we will proceed with those.
It is true that the bill does not include land. The federal government has never included land in a specific claims process. The main reason is we do not own land. Primarily land is owned either in fee simple in the private sector or by provinces under Crown land in the way the Constitution and our country has come together.
I mentioned the Big Stone Cree settlement where the province wants to get involved. The provinces have an option to get involved in this if they would like to. If they feel it is in the best interests for certainty and their own legal obligations, they may well want to get involved. It is their prerogative. We cannot order that to happen under the legislation.
We deal in money. This in turn will allow maximum flexibility for the first nations who may decide to purchase land to add to a reserve, but we do not have the land base with which to barter. We deal with the money side of it and deal with our legal exposure that way.
It is important to note that there are other venues to deal with other issues, for example, on loss of language or cultural issues. This is not meant to be a comprehensive treaty negotiation. It is a specific claims bill and it is very specific on certain obligations. There may be other obligations, but there are other venues to pursue them.