Public Safety committee  Mr. Chair, I apologize if I've been coming in and out. I don't have the video feed from your end, so I thought it was not working. Thank you very much for the opportunity to appear. Would you like me to make my comments at this time?

Public Safety committee  Thank you very much. I have some brief comments to make regarding the bill. Tansi, boozhoo, edlanet'e, and good afternoon, Mr. Chair, members of the committee, and Madam Secretary. On behalf of the northern Manitoba first nations, of which there are 30, and the 65,000 first na

Public Safety committee  Thank you very much for the question. As I indicated at the beginning of our comments, the reconciliation between victims, offenders, and communities is a core element of our restorative justice and community-based policing initiatives and our vision for our policing and justice

Public Safety committee  The apology was extremely important. During the apology itself, our boardroom in Thompson was absolutely packed. There were first nations citizens from our communities and leaders and technicians from the various groups who joined us in the Grand Chief Francis Flett memorial boar

Public Safety committee  Yes, those are both components of what we were saying. But also, of course—and importantly—the payments themselves are reconciliatory in their root; that is, intended to reconcile the adverse impacts upon the individual of the Indian residential school system. They're intended as

Public Safety committee  The other aspect—

Public Safety committee  The other important part, though, is this. I mentioned our emphasis on restorative and community-based justice systems. We place a great deal of significance on those initiatives, because within our communities we want to bring victims and offenders face to face to resolve the is

Public Safety committee  Well, as a matter of restitution with a person who they may have offended in some manner in their life...?

Public Safety committee  I do know that the settlement payments can be distributed within the communities to do good things in terms of the purchase of needed hunting and harvesting equipment to improve the lives of individual families. In some cases, that may indirectly improve the lives of persons th

Public Safety committee  Yes, absolutely.

Public Safety committee  There's a large number of concepts there. I'll start with the last one. I take it that your example is pursuant to the laws of the Province of Alberta.

Public Safety committee  All right. The distinction here, firstly, is that it's a piece of federal legislation that we're discussing. Her Majesty had a significant and central role in the Indian residential school system, unlike the Government of Alberta, which may have been involved in some way, but it

Public Safety committee  I am not a lawyer, and the comments that I'm making are not a legal opinion, although I work closely with our lawyers. No, I am not—subject to check—aware of something that may make moneys an individual has not subject to some form of allocation through an order of the court.

Public Safety committee  Again, my comment, though, is that we're not discussing a process to transfer the awards of moneys under the laws of Manitoba. We're talking about a federal statute dealing with individuals who have an award being provided to them by the federal government, in part through action

Public Safety committee  I want to comment that the object of the bill is not to create a uniformity in terms of the processing of claims and the ability to attach moneys that persons who are offenders might come into. We're dealing with a specific piece of federal legislation that is designed to amend a