Madam Speaker, I would like to ask the hon. member for Etobicoke North one simple question. To her knowledge, is it true that first nations groups are working on the panoply of rights they want for their own communities?
The right of self-determination is very clear in the United Nations declaration for aboriginal peoples. The Indian Act is something entirely different, which puts a fiduciary duty on the Government of Canada. I am speaking of rights with respect to making their own laws, not only with respect to matrimonial property, but with respect to access, with respect to child and family services and with respect to the best interests of the child as we know it.
First nations groups are working on these rights. The Conservative government seems to be in a drive-by legislation mode, whereby it drives a big truck through a community and throws a piece of piecemeal legislation off the back. The Conservatives take this approach with justice issues and aboriginal issues.
Are first nations not offended by this approach because they are working on solutions to their own problems in their own way and in their own time, as they are guaranteed to do by law?