Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  We're somewhere around 50 recognition of rights and self-determination tables now across the country.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  Negotiation teams from the department, as well as negotiators from other government departments sometimes, for example, the Department of Fisheries and Oceans or Environment Canada, and then it's whoever is representing the indigenous groups we are negotiating with.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  If they're in British Columbia, for example, they will happen in British Columbia. I have an office in British Columbia of about 75 people or so, and they look after the negotiations that cover British Columbia, as well as the Yukon. The rest of the country will normally be split

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  That's right.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  I don't know that you would. I think that gets to a root issue that we have in that there's not enough information available for Canadians to understand some of this work and what it means to have a dialogue based on recognition of rights, on moving to actualize the vision of sel

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  I think it's really hard to put a number on there. I think it's more about trying to talk about the forms of agreement we're trying to get to, and whether we can fix that to get to things faster, rather than requiring these fully comprehensive agreements.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  I think from Canada's perspective, certainly in the modern treaty era—so post-1970—none of what we were doing was about extinguishment, but we understand that from certain perspectives some of what we were doing looked like extinguishment. What we have tried to do in the approa

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  If you're referring to the approach that was taken to what they call certainty provisions and the notion of full and final agreements, our policy has shifted. Certainly, we are open to a broad swath of agreement types, and we no longer insist that the agreement has to be full and

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  We do not have any policy or practice of just randomly changing negotiators after a certain amount of time. If there's a change in negotiators, it's either because someone is taking a form of leave, have had a promotion, have decided to pursue employment elsewhere, or have retire

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  Pardon me?

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  I think I would say that if you looked at what the Innu were looking for at the table and at what the scope of the mandate was that we had at the table, you would see that gap was significant and definitely part of the issue. That's not just a money issue. I want to say that it

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  The distinction, I guess, would be that the way the comprehensive claims policy and the inherent right policy were built was on the basis that the indigenous group had to prove the scope of the right they were seeking to have recognized in the treaty. The starting premise was tha

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  I will have to get back to you on the numbers around the treaty lands entitlement. I don't have those numbers at my fingertips, nor do I have the average time it takes to resolve them. I can say that we've made significantly more progress in Saskatchewan than we have in Manitoba.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  You are correct. I don't have a good reason to provide that explains why the negotiations with the Innu have taken 30 years. In my time in this position, I would say that has been one of the biggest challenges, to unpack why it takes so long in some communities. I think some of

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  Steve Gagnon can provide you with an update.