Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  Not yet, no. I will follow up. We've been focusing on some other areas, but I know we'll follow up with their legal counsel, because obviously these are important areas to us. Unfortunately, there are a whole bunch of things that we have to address as a first nation.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  Yes.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  As you know, we don't have a specific claim over $150 million. Our three specific claims are under $150 million. It's been a very slow process. We appreciate that Canada is going through and looking at a more appropriate or more efficient way to deal with the claims; however, they have been outstanding since our effective date, and we started this prior to that.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  We recently got our effective date, but I know a number of the other first nations have outstanding claims, and it's been very long now. I understand that the court process was also very long because of the number of them. I think we've held out a lot of hope that the new tribunal would act quicker and more efficiently.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  That's correct. That's the intent of it, but the difficulty is that the expediting is to say, “No, we don't want to take this into account, or these claims. We'll drop them off the table without giving them due process”. That's not quicker and more efficient for us.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  Currently our first nation is involved with it, but we have no legislative authority. The legislative authority really falls under the laws of general application to the Yukon government, so any of the judicial and legal work is really through the Yukon government. They have the legal grounds for intervention, so they would override any of the work we do in our community.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  Let me start with two examples. One example occurred when a nurse was attending a family with a newborn. The father was very tired, and the nurse and the father didn't get along too well, so the nurse reported the father to child services. The child services of the Yukon government went to the hospital and began to inquire in terms of looking at the care of the child.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  That's correct. It's part of our law. We've begun to use some policies and procedures and we try to follow a lot of them to make sure they fit with the Yukon government. There's a coordination there. We do have those policies. However, one of the things we look at--

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  In section 6, which we referred to, is where it gets into the procedures. Within the procedures we have a family council that acts as the judiciary, if you wish. It reviews the situation with the family so that those processes take place. The families are drawn into it through our family council, which is really the adjudication process.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  How many are in care? Right now, when you say “in care”, some of them are in the welfare system. That means they have foster parents. We have about two or three in foster situations. We have another two or three for whom the Yukon government is looking for permanent custody in adopting out.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  Yes. Under the programs and services transfer agreements, which are the agreements that would transfer the resources that would be required to bring our law to life and to implement our law, we've looked at all of our Carcross/Tagish First Nation children in care with the Yukon government.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  One of the very fundamental things is that with the whole residential school process that we're going through—and it's intergenerational—there was a lot of dysfunction in our communities. What happened early on was that a lot of the children were taken to residential school and separated from the families.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  We've struggled with it. Obviously I can't speak for the crown, but some of our perceptions are that the current policy--and it's policy, not negotiations--is to look at delegated models as opposed to legislated models. What that means is that I think the current government in Canada wants to see the first nations fall under provincial and territorial legislation rather than develop and integrate self-government legislation.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  Yes, the Yukon government has been cooperative in the programs and services transfer agreements, but when we actually requested them to make sure that our law and their law would work together, there was an unwillingness to look at amendments to their law to incorporate traditional values and cultures, which, as the Auditor General pointed out, is the spirit and intent of the agreements.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  I think one of the things that has to occur is that the Department of Finance needs to take a much more important role and come to the table for the programs and services transfer agreements. The other thing we need to do is make sure that the laws work together. It's really about putting adequate resources towards the implementation of these modern-day treaties.