Thank you, very much. I would like to thank Mr. Antoine for his questions, because I think they are very reasonable, and important ones. I hope that my answers will make him feel comfortable, and if not, maybe we can work further to clarify things.
I think it is important, Mr. Antoine, to understand the purpose of the Metis Nation Accord. We have been after the federal government for a long time to recognize its responsibilities to the Metis. Just as an example, in the Manitoba Act, which is part of Canada's Constitution, the land of the Metis were to have been given recognition. That was of all of the families that were there. Their lands were to be recognized. In addition, in this little area of the Red River, 1.4 million acres of land was to have been set aside for the Metis, and this was in recognition of the Indian title. That was what was specified, after the Manitoba Act was passed, and after the Canadian government brought in a huge influx of people to far outnumber the Metis. They then passed a series of constitutional acts that were designed specifically to deny the Metis of their lands.
That was fraud at its highest level. Here was a government, or governments, that was supposed to be fulfilling their fiduciary obligations, and their trust responsibility to the Metis. Instead, they were passing laws that were designed to connive and to deprive the Metis of ever having their lands. As a result, our people throughout the Metis Nation have been reduced to being road allowance people, not accepted on the reserves, and not accepted in the white community.
Our way of life was outlawed. At one time our people used to be able to hunt, so they could look after their families. Governments came along and said, no, we are going to pass laws to say you cannot. We used to be able to trap and they took away our trap lines. These are trust responsibilities the government has had, the federal government, the Government of Canada.
When we first went to Ottawa as a new national group in 1970, we then started to press the federal government to realize its trust responsibilities, its legal responsibilities to deal with Metis issues, and to be able to legislate for the Metis. The federal government has conveniently said, we do not have the responsibility to legislate for you, that now is the provinces.
We go to the provinces and say, look, we are landless. You have the responsibility to provide our people land, we are an aboriginal people without land. They say "no, no, no, that is the federal responsibility." So, we have been a political football.
In the meantime, our people do not have access to education, financing, and we have the same problems as Indian people when it comes to Child and Family Services coming in and splitting up our families. We have the same problems of incarceration of our people, and so on and so forth, but no recognition of a responsibility anywhere.
During this round of constitutional talks, before it started, we had asked the government in Ottawa to do something to clarify this. They said, in these federal proposals, you will remember when this was put out about a year ago, September of last year, the federal government said: "The Metis have often been characterized as Canada's forgotten people. The Government of Canada is committed to addressing the appropriate roles and responsibilities of the governments, as they relate to the Metis."
So we said, "Hallelujah." When the constitutional talks began, the multilateral talks began, we said, how do we address this, how do we come up with a way that will settle this issue, so that the federal government will be able to accept its responsibility? They put together a special task force which took place during the multilateral talks. The federal government, during those meetings, said, look, if we accept our responsibility as a federal government, our federal fiduciary responsibility, we do not want the provinces and the territories to turn around and say, "now we are going to off-load all of our provincial expenditures on Metis for things like education, and child welfare", and so on. "We are now going to send the bill to Ottawa."
The federal government said if we go along with this, we have to have an assurance from the provinces that they are not going to do this. The Assembly of First Nations, and some provincial governments said, "look, if will you accept your role and responsibility for the Metis, we do not want to see you reduce funds for programs, and services, to the aboriginal groups that the federal government is already funding."
This is the kind of negotiation that went on, to sort out the roles and the responsibilities, of the governments. Now, we have put that all in a draft, that was in the Metis Nation Accord, which was approved by the Ministers on September 28. Technically, there were some parts of the draft that were incomplete, because we had to await the legal language, but all of the elements of the Metis Nation Accord were agreed to last summer. In fact, the Metis Nation Accord was circulated, and provided to Metis communities here in the Northwest Territories, during the annual assembly last year.
Now, we have an agreement that sorts out the role and responsibilities of the governments. The federal government, and the provinces, are prepared to make an amendment to section 91.24 to clarify that the federal area of jurisdiction also applies to the Metis, by saying something to the effect of, "this clarifies that the words Indians and lands reserved for Indians in section 91.24 applies equally to all aboriginal peoples."
That, then, means that the Metis will no longer be political footballs. The federal government will be able to negotiate because it recognizes that it has a jurisdiction to negotiate. We sought further assurances in terms of self-government negotiations. Part of the Metis Nation Accord provides for transfer payments to be made to self-government institutions in the future, that there will be transfer payments, that there will be a devolution of programs to Metis institutions and so on.
There are these various aspects of the Metis Nation Accord that serve, more or less, as a framework agreement for the negotiation of self-government agreements. Such a framework agreement, I guess, for the Metis Nation, is a bit ahead of other people who have not been in the position of negotiating a framework agreement. In fact, that is part of the constitutional package, there will be framework agreements entered into with all aboriginal groups who will be entering into self-government negotiations. It is not just us that will have an accord like this, all groups will have an accord.
Since we were in those negotiations, we went ahead and produced this accord, because we are so far behind, and this accord now brings us up to a level playing field with the other aboriginal peoples of Canada. I hope I have explained the purpose of the accord, Mr. Antoine, and I hope that we can have a chance to discuss with you, in more detail, the contents of the Metis Nation Accord. I know that the Metis Nation of the Northwest Territories intends to go into great detail in all the Metis communities and, obviously, in areas such as yours and everywhere really, where the Metis and the Indian people live side by side. There will be a need to make sure that everybody understands what is in the Metis Nation Accord.