Mr. Speaker, indeed my colleague has a challenging riding but he handles it very well. In talking to some of the aboriginal leadership and aboriginal people within his riding of Kenora, he has a great relationship, a respectful one with the aboriginal people in that part of Canada.
I travel quite extensively throughout my riding. I go through many remote communities. They cannot get a meeting with the minister. They cannot get heard by the minister. For the most part, they are dealt with through memos or emails. They cannot get direct answers to the questions they raise.
The member has raised in another way the whole issue of trust and the essential point that I made about how to resolve land claims. In Labrador we have one of the newest land claims, the Nunatsiavut government. While this bill is supposed to resolve claims about historic treaties, the government also has an obligation to carry out its responsibilities and obligations under modern treaties and to make sure that they are implemented properly.
There are also other claims that have not been accepted from a comprehensive perspective by this particular government. The government also has an obligation to sit down and negotiate those particular treaties.
A government cannot build trust if it does not talk. It cannot build trust if it does not listen. It cannot build trust if it thinks that the very people who are affected by the government's policies do not have some of the answers. It cannot build trust if it does not think that the fathers and mothers who give care to their children know best how to care for their children.
It is important that the government listen. It is important that the government engage in a respectful relationship with all aboriginal peoples in Canada.