Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, I realize that this type of situation is a reality in some of the small communities. It goes back to the treaties that were signed back in 1899 in Treaty 8, and 1921 in Treaty 11 situation there. Over the years, as things evolve and communities get bigger and there is infrastructure put into the communities by this government, that whole area has not been resolved. There are some communities that have resolved it themselves. I used the example of Fort Good Hope, Deline, I think in Wha Ti, and other communities have been able to look at combining the chief and band council system at the community level, and making an arrangement with the public government system for voting. So, that people who are not band members may be involved at the municipal level in elections and voting, like you say. But, there are some communities where that has not been done yet. In the situations, perhaps in my constituency, where we have about four communities where there is chief and band council, It is really up to them and the federal government to start talking about land claims and self-government arrangements. This government here supports land claims policy and we support the inherent rights of self-government that some of the communities are pursuing. That is one way of doing it. I think that gone are the days where we go into the communities and impose a different system on the people. I think that we have gone away from that.
About the only solution I see here is that the communities that want to get involved in land claims, they should be supported and encouraged. If they want to start talking about the inherent right to self-government, how they would govern themselves in the small communities, then, that is a direction that we should support and we should see if we could move that discussion along. In the meantime, we are going to be remaining in the same situation. The honourable Member asked what this ministry is going to do about it. We support the attempts by the different aboriginal groups to go out and get involved in land claims and discussion. The Dogrib are involved into land claims discussion at the same time. They are doing self-government talks. The federal government does not have a mandate for their negotiators yet, but they are attempting to go in that direction. Through that negotiation system, we are going to see how the local government is going to be run. The same thing with the Beaufort Delta. The Gwich'in Inuvialuits are going to be talking about the self-government arrangements and that is dealing at the community and regional level as well.
The Sahtu are beginning to do talks with self-government. Treaty 8, they are getting to talk about the land claims and which way they are going to go. Fort Smith, Salt River First Nation, they are pursuing a reserve type of arrangement. So, it is really the initiative of the different First Nations and the Metis, as well, to start talking with the feds and ourselves on what kind of arrangements they are going to make. So, this is how we, in the ministry, are getting involved.
In the Deh Cho, before Christmas, they have taken the position where they want to start talking with the federal government on the inherent right to self-government. The federal government has to respond to that yet. I have encouraged the federal Minister at the meeting on Friday to try to get a response to the Deh Cho as quickly as possible. Better sooner than later.
So, this is the way that this ministry is trying to encourage and move the discussions along with the First Nations and Metis. Again, in this type of arrangement, what kind of municipal services are provided at the community level, what kind of voting is going on at the community level, the Municipal and Community Affairs is responsible for providing the funding for municipal services on a contractual basis. But this ministry here we are trying to move the land claims talks and the self-government talks along. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.