Mr. Chairman, on the first point, I think in the course of the discussions, as I said, we have taken the view that where the rights of women were concerned, minorities, disabled, we were there to promote and make sure that there was no erosion of these rights, and we feel we have done an adequate job.
As, I think, one Member raised earlier, including one Member of the committee, perhaps we did not do enough in the case of the disabled. The fact was, and Mr. Clark has clarified that, in checking with all the participants, everyone was with the view that the wording in the Canada clause included, since it does not specifically exclude, but following finalization of the text, if it is understood that they are not explicitly included, that provisions will be made to make sure that they are.
As far as the legal opinion goes, we were going on the fly, so to speak, and we had 100 lawyers, huddling just in one corner of the room alone. It is our view that there is no erosion. The rights of women, whether they are aboriginal women or not, are not threatened, or eroded, as a result of these rights, as I said earlier. It is our view, and it is our strong political view that we have made gains.
If I understood the question right, what do the provisions in the Constitution imply for possible court action in regard to the treaty interpretations? In my view, if this constitutional package is approved, the courts will take directives from the Constitution, explicitly that section says that treaties will be interpreted in a broad and liberal manner, keeping in mind the spirit and intent in which they were created, I think is the wording that we use there. Of the parties that are signatory to the treaties, that the courts will find that they do not have to stick to a written version of a treaty to render their decision, that they will take into account the views of the aboriginal peoples who are party to that agreement. They will take into account what their understanding of the aboriginal people were when they went to the treaty table. They will take into account what the aboriginal people say, their original intent, or spirit of the treaty making. I think it enhances in a significant way, the gains that could be made by aboriginal peoples through the courts, because it removes the threat.
I think that the court could become so straight-jacketed, and conservative, as to say Treaty 8 and 11, only mean what is written in the treaties. It removes that, I think, as a likely possibility in the court rendering a decision that, in my view, it also does something that has not been mentioned by Mr. Mercredi yesterday.
It removes as well, the possibility that individual chiefs, and band councils across this country, could jeopardize the gains made by aboriginal people in other legal proceedings through poor and improper resources, a lack of financing, and improperly prepared court cases, as has been the case in recent years. Where individual bands in other parts of the country can jeopardize the rights, and the prospects, for gaining rights for everybody else in the country by unilaterally taking their own court action. I think this provision does have, for myself, a tremendous gain. Just to remind Members, when we went to negotiations, as many of you know, we felt that if we could get the right to self-government in there, we were doing pretty darn good. If we got the inherent right in the Constitution, we were going great. What, in fact, happened was much more than that.
We got provisions for Metis people, we got provisions for self-government, for the process of negotiation, the legal transition, and we have got provisions for inclusion for representation in the Senate. We have made many, many gains that we had not contemplated before we got to the negotiations. Thank you.