Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  I have just a couple of extra points. The common-law duty to consult aboriginal peoples, as you know, also includes the duty to accommodate. It's not enough to talk. It's also important to try to, where possible, achieve a result that accommodates the aboriginal party. As my co

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  One feature of the bill that you'll notice is that there are time limits in relation to decision-making, and not just time limits for management bodies but also government officials, which is an important feature. It's important that public sector participants play by the clock,

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  We haven't taken our analysis that far in the sense of predicting specific legal problems that could ensue. As a general proposition, it's very important that new laws, particularly laws that are there precisely to help implement the treaty, are developed in such a way as to su

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  We think that's a strength of the bill. The practice in land use planning in Nunavut since 1993 has been that the two governments and Inuit sign on to any new proposed plan. There are a lot of good reasons for that, not least of which is that the Inuit own 20% of the land. Insofa

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  On your first point, I know a lot of people believe this is the last piece of implementation legislation. I think, in fact, it's not. There's a large project involving implementation legislation in relation to fisheries in Nunavut that has not yet been completed. That legislation

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  The bill doesn't actually focus on local land use planning. Local land use planning is governed by territorial legislation in relation to municipalities. I think it clarifies a little bit of the world that unfolds when local plans and the broader Nunavut and regional plans intera

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  Correct.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  Is the question, does this bill improve the land use process?

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  NTI believes it does improve the land use process, yes.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  If you look at articles 11 and 12 of the Nunavut Land Claims Agreement, you get limited text. Land claims agreements, by definition, don't get into the detail that is required in order to implement a complex land use planning environmental assessment scheme. The bill, of course,

Electoral Reform committee  Thank you, Chair. When we were developing our brief, we were mindful that there's a great potential for any reforms to become too complicated for Canadians to track and be comfortable with. There's an advantage in trying to make reforms as simple as possible. When it came to th

Electoral Reform committee  Thank you, sir. I would make the observation that I think the principle of the equality of every voter is not an absolute. Certainly we haven't followed that in Canada from 1867 on. We do, I think, in the design of Parliament, the House of Commons, treat the equality of voters a

Electoral Reform committee  I take your point about there being a constitutional basis for P.E.I.'s particular case. In our brief, of course, we said that section 35—recognizing the existence in Canada of the aboriginal peoples—of course is a constitutional foundation as to why that reality of Canada should

Electoral Reform committee  I would reinforce the general proposition that if one introduced a mixed member electoral model and made no other adjustments, it's possible that representation in a Parliament would actually go down. That's because if you add to the current complement of MPs—if you add another 6

Electoral Reform committee  I would just make one observation, sir. We've made reference to the New Zealand system, but we're aware that when it was first introduced in New Zealand, the Maoris were approximately half the population. This was not introduced as a generous gesture; this was essentially giving