Mr. Speaker, I have sent a letter to the heads of all the aboriginal organizations today and I have laid out what I thought would be a clear statement. It is this government's position that aboriginal people have the inherent right to self-government. We have said that consistently for the last eight years. We have negotiated that in the Charlottetown Accord and we continue to uphold that position, as does, apparently, the federal government. Such a right is in section 35 of the Constitution.
We went further today to say that we are prepared in self-government negotiations to recognize that aboriginal governments would have the legislative capacity to govern and that subject matters contained in the northern accord -- which is oil and gas, and minerals -- must be negotiated in the context of self-government. Aboriginal governments, regional governments or public governments, in the future, will have jurisdiction over such matters and will be tied to whether or not they wish to provide programs and services. So we have been fairly explicit in reaching the concerns of some of the aboriginal leaders.
The concern has been once oil and gas matters have been devolved to the territorial government, does that exclude forever any possibility, in the future, should there be a regional government by the Inuvialuit, Gwich'in, the Sahtu or the Deh Cho, that that would not be available for negotiations. I have said in a letter and I have said directly to them that this means that this government is prepared to support such a notion that in the future, 20 years or 50 years from now, should it become viable to negotiate forms of governments that would provide programs and services to aboriginal people and/or all people within a particular jurisdiction, we are prepared to discuss the extent of the geographic jurisdiction, and the subject matters which will include those that are included now under the northern accord. So this was a specific concern raised by the leaders of the Sahtu and I thought they were of concern to other aboriginal leaders, so I met with them over lunch, having just returned a few minutes ago and this was one of the issues that was raised. Thank you.