Thank you for the question.
It is remarkable to me how little time and space has been spent defining aboriginal rights through a legislative agenda. Aboriginal rights have only been defined by the courts. Courts have, by degrees, expanded the principle and concept of aboriginal rights after conflict between first nations, Métis or Inuit, and federal or provincial governments.
This narrow and limited conception of rights is, in some ways, maybe by design, because of an unwillingness by the federal government to actually articulate how it views aboriginal rights and what is included in aboriginal rights. If we were to write a list of the aboriginal rights, how many lawmakers could list three or four or five, or what aboriginal rights should be? That lack of dialogue on the conception of aboriginal rights is, as I said, somewhat remarkable. That discussion isn't really happening. Maybe it's happening in this committee. I don't know.
Now, it's potentially problematic for parliamentarians to pass a law that describes the scope and content of aboriginal rights without the discussion and consent of indigenous people, but why not have that conversation?
I think that word in particular, “consent”, is a useful one. As I said in my opening remarks, I feel that it is a conversation that is emerging and proliferating around the country. It is a tool that communities are increasingly using to insert and enforce their vision of land management, land restitution, self-government and self-determination.
Perhaps there's an avenue through which to pursue the work that has already been done by the federal government around the United Nation's declaration and implementation plan and to build on the concept of free, prior and informed consent. That would allow communities to decide for themselves, at a local level, and perhaps regional level, what land back means to them.
Those are two possible avenues for that.