Mr. Speaker, I began my speech without acknowledging that we are on the territory of Algonquin peoples, unceded and sovereign. It is a very difficult thing. I agree that I was slightly paraphrasing Dr. Palmater, but her testimony made it clear that we are to be within the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, as we were supposed to be as it was one of the commitments going forward into the new Liberal government, although I am sure the justice lawyers are advising that there are all kinds of problems.
I mentioned in one of my questions and comments earlier tonight that I am enormously excited and pleased that the new government in British Columbia, the New Democrats and the Green Party, will be completely committed to operating under the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples as legal requirements of the new B.C. government. That will help, I think, the federal level and in other jurisdictions to see how it is done.
However, we should be thinking in the ways the member for Winnipeg Centre suggested, perhaps not exactly in those words and not exactly that solution, but all of the advice that has come to us from experts, scholars, and the leadership in indigenous communities is that the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples needs to guide us, which would mean that the Indian Act is completely incompatible with those recognitions of rights. That means we have to be prepared to take some very large steps. Of course, nothing we do as non-indigenous people can be done in this area without leadership from the indigenous leadership, first nations, Inuit, and Métis.