Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  As Joe said, specific claims are usually more precise. An action or series of actions caused harm to a first nation. Generally speaking, they're more discrete issues, whereas in a comprehensive claim you're talking potentially about self-government. You're talking about lands, re

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  We have 230 in negotiation. We have about 130 to 140 in assessment, so we're determining whether or not we agree that there's an outstanding lawful obligation. I think you heard the Auditor General refer to closed files, and so a number could go to the tribunal, but haven't. That

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  I think last year we had around 15.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  I think the Auditor General found that in the specific claims context the mean was five.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  As Joe just said, we're putting a lot of our eggs in the working group we have, being facilitated by the AFN. I can't tell you that things have changed drastically yet, but I can tell you that I think it has been a constructive and productive process. We are working at it, but we

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  When we started this work we focused on four major areas: claims over $150 million, public reporting, funding for negotiations, and the use of mediation. The context, as I interpret it for a lot of things that were in the Auditor General's report and other reports, was that in 20

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  I could answer the second part of your question first. The first nation would decide how it's going to use its lands. Typically there are trust agreements put in place. We don't generally get involved in how the money is used. The first part is much more technical, and I might

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  Are you asking about specific claims or a specific comprehensive claim?

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  I don't want to be flippant, but it is complicated. We do have cross-boundary claims that we have to deal with too that are more jurisdictional.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  Well, without getting into specifics about the actual claim—and fortunately, I'm not really up to speed on all the actual specifics, so I'm probably not going to get myself into a bunch of trouble—I guess I would say that the average citizen needs to know that the process we're g

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  I don't know for sure, but, for example, in cases where crown land would potentially be part of a package, there will be a public consultation session. If it's just financial though, I don't know whether that would be the case.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  I'm sorry, but most of our work would be in places where there are numbered treaties, yes.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  Historic treaties is what we call them.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  We generally tend to divide them between what happened before 1975 in the James Bay and then what happened after. That is how I would define that.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  To some extent. Let's say there was a numbered treaty out west and we have not yet fulfilled all the terms of the treaty land entitlement. That would be a claim that I would deal with. However, we also deal with just management of lands and assets, so it's not only treaty-related