Mr. Chairman, Mr. Trudeau was the Prime Minister who, some time ago agreed to allow the notwith standing clause be included in the constitutional package, back in 1982.
Governments and people of this country have had to live with it since then. In particular to aboriginal governments, as they are being formed, I believe that aboriginal women will be fully involved, I expect them to be in the forefront of developing these forms of aboriginal government. Certainly if they form 52 percent of the population of Canada, and a massive part of their communities, they will have a very decisive say it endorsing any type of governments that are being developed.
The not withstanding clause was extended to aboriginal governments because to not allow it to be extended to aboriginal governments would have made this third order of government somewhat inferior to provincial and federal governments. It was the view of the aboriginal leaders that the not withstanding clause may be useful in the protection of the aboriginal languages, and the culture and traditions of the aboriginal people themselves. Where it comes into conflict with the Charter, that the collective rights of aboriginal people should be paramount in the political view of the aboriginal governments. It is necessary to take some decisive action there and that is, how you further bind the governments, the duly elected governments of aboriginal people of the future. There was no in-depth discussion about it the course of the negotiations. Thank you.