Mr. Speaker, as I pointed out, the president of ITK and the president of NTI spoke publicly against the legislation because of that exclusion. As I mentioned at the onset of the development of Bill C-91, they were led to believe it would be a distinctions-based approach to developing the legislation. It seems that now that we have it, it is not.
One of the things I tried to bring forward with my amendment, which was a soft amendment and it would have been a very friendly, easy amendment to accept, would have allowed the minister to have the door open to work with Inuit, if he chose to do so. It was not a “shall”, it was not a “must”, it was a “may”.
I am kind of baffled as to why that amendment was defeated. It in no way committed a government, the current government or any government in the future, to any type of direction or commitment, which is something that cannot be done. I was very careful to put forward that amendment in a way that allowed the government to move forward and have the ability to recognize the wishes of Inuit in the legislation.