Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank the member for his speech and welcome him to the House. We have worked together previously under different mantles.
I know the member is a lawyer, and I would like him to respond to the same question that the member for Abitibi—Baie-James—Nunavik—Eeyou put to the justice minister. It is related to the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. A number of people in the House tonight have asked if it is perhaps not time to let the aboriginal communities themselves, whether they be first nation, Métis or Inuit, deliver these programs—education, health care, and so forth—on their own.
Would the member, with his legal background, agree with the recommendation by my colleague, who previously tabled a bill to this effect, that international law, including the UNDRIP, does not become the law of Canada until a bill is adopted in the House? Does he support the call by my colleague that we take that first step, which would then recognize the rights of the first nations to order their own business?