Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  Very quickly, Mr. Chairman, if the proposed amendments fairly represent the consensus view of the witnesses who appeared before the committee, and you share their concerns that Bill C-44, as drafted, is flawed and would not give fair protection to our people, because our governme

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  Mr. Chairman, committee members, it's important we point out that the fact that we would advocate a delay in this process to ensure that there is full and adequate consultation with our people should not to be seen as a contradiction because we advocated that three other bills be

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  I'll give you the general overview and then call on my able support team to speak to the technical details of your question. It's clear that most recognize that our communities are in a very difficult situation. In an ideal situation, these communities ought to be in a position

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  Yes, Mr. Chairman. Thank you, and my thanks and appreciation to committee members for giving us another opportunity to present on a matter that we consider of vital importance to all of us. There should be absolutely no question or doubt that first nations leaders are concerned

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  I'll respond to part of it, and Chief Price wishes to add her comments as well. First of all, the distinction here is between on-reserve and off-reserve first nation citizens. Our position is that first nation governments ought to be able to extend the provision of good governme

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  There are a couple of points, and Chief Price or Candice may wish to add to my comments. We're dealing with the human rights of individuals, as well as the collective rights of first nations people. As we said earlier, we need to strike an appropriate balance between the two.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  The point was made earlier by legal counsel, and she may wish to reiterate those points.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  Mr. Albrecht, these are the result of legal opinions. We haven't had discussions with the Canadian Human Rights Commission. Our concern is that these would be incorporated as part of rights as opposed to legislation. If they were incorporated into the legislation, we believe th

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  I'll make one more quick intervention, and this is in response to your first question, Tina. It has to do with the costing out of these provisions. We've recommended an 18-month review process. This would be a joint review process between the federal government and us. Part of t

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  In fact, Mr. Bruinooge—if you don't mind, Mr. Chairman, a quick addition to this point—in our community the preference is to provide protection to the children. So to whoever has custody of the children, preferential treatment will be provided and has in fact traditionally been p

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  I would have to admit that all these measures we are recommending haven't been costed out. The only point I would make, again, is that we need to ensure there's capacity within our communities to be able to respond fairly and appropriately and promptly to the provision of servic

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  —that in fact we have what you've suggested, a situation where 40%, or at least half of the communities that were in crisis, are no longer in crisis.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  First of all, I want to respond to the point you made, Mr. Bruinooge, about the emergency water intervention strategy and the status report that Minister Prentice issued last week. We question the report and we question Minister Prentice, because what we have in this status repo

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  It did—for example, with housing. The way housing is delivered to first nation communities, you develop these lists. In many communities, because of the crisis situation that exists—there is a backlog of approximately 80,000 houses needed to catch up—that list has been growing an

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  Let me first conclude my response to the previous question about how this whole matter would affect first nation communities. I talked about Bill C-31. I want to conclude my response to that, and then I'm going to turn to Candice Metallic to speak to your question, Jean. When Bi