Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  I can speak very generally to that. A lot of our communities don't always have access to the high-speed Internet that you would need to actually facilitate that type of meeting.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  That is a big barrier, when you talk about bringing technology into the discussion.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  I think you're getting into very complicated territory and I might not be in the best position to answer that question fully, but I think there are two parts to it. There is the issue of optics, so you have the judge, jury, executioner idea that's a perception, both from the inside and the outside, but then you also have things like the Specific Claims Tribunal and their recent findings and the fact that they're largely finding in favour of first nations claims, which Canada has itself rejected already.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  Sure. If a claim is valued by Canada at less than $3 million, I don't believe they receive any negotiation loan funding. Historically, I believe those have been given as “take it or leave it” offers by the government. They are usually very nominal sums. I don't believe any of our communities have been faced with that yet.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  My understanding is that this could then go to tribunal. I believe that, in recent months, the specific claims branch has been talking about coming up with a different process, but again, I think it would have to go back to being legislated, because right now the mechanism.... I could be speaking out of turn, so I apologize if I don't have my understanding of that part of the policy 100% on point, but I don't believe there is much avenue for a first nation to refute that.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  I won't speak for all the communities in that, because I'm sure that each individual community that we work on behalf of may have a vastly different idea of how that would look. Based on our work with the Office of the Auditor General during the report last year, I will say that their level of independence and their ability to look at an issue very objectively were very welcome.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  I think you will see it a lot more in the negotiations. You're going to see it in the different types of claims. My understanding is that treaty land entitlement issues in British Columbia are a lot more difficult to address, mostly because historically British Columbia has been less willing to provide additional reserve lands.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  I'm going to speak a bit about the idea of the treaty issue. Given that we're a historical treaty as opposed to a modern-day treaty, our treaty is fixed. Our first nations understanding of what happened at the treaty meeting is extremely different from what was written down and what is interpreted by Canada.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  Yes, one of our directors is based in Victoria, so our main offices are considered to be Vancouver and Calgary, but to speak to your issue between Alberta and British Columbia, because we work with Treaty 8 first nations, our experiences are generally pretty similar. Where we start to see differences breakdown in a lot of cases, from what I've heard from my colleagues and superiors, is when it comes to negotiations.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  Change in federal negotiators; you've heard about that today. I can give you a few more concrete examples. We have one community that's now on its ninth federal negotiator. If you do that over the term of the negotiation, nine federal negotiator changes and a year uptake on each of those negotiators to come to the table, and again you've heard this morning, many of them come without a mandate.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  Thank you, Madam Chair. My name is Morgan Chapman. I'm here presenting on behalf of Havlik Metcs Limited. We're based in Vancouver, Calgary, and Victoria and we're here representing over 15 first nations in Alberta and British Columbia, namely the Lesser Slave Lake Indian Regional Council's treaty and aboriginal rights research program, and the Treaty 8 Tribal Association's TARR program.