Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague, also a fellow northerner, for raising this important concern that was raised by the Gwich'in.
Not only are we very concerned that the government is about to spend significant money on a devolution process that has some real faults, faults that we could separate from the bill and prevent, but there is also the possibility of litigation.
The government has a dark history of spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on litigating first nations, some of the peoples in this country who have the least money. Somehow the government chooses to fight them in court, and instead of sitting at the table and finding a solution when the time is right, like now, it will do it in the courts.
That is unacceptable. We in the NDP believe that first nations and inherent rights are integral to the work we do, integral to the work of the Northwest Territories devolution system, and we will not waiver from that position.