Thank you, Mr. Chairman. One of the concerns I have is that a lot of the communities are negotiating land claims and self-government, they also want to have the ability to generate their own revenues. They want to be able to run their own municipalities. I know for a fact that...you talk about taxes in communities and everything else, it is put into general revenues. The aboriginal claimant groups also want to take on that responsibility of having a say in the development of lands and also have a say in how the taxes are going to be collected.
I think what I see here is that we are competing for the same thing. This government wants to have a say in how they would like control in what goes on in municipalities. They want to have a say in how taxes are going to be collected, how lands are going to be developed, how the municipal acts are going to be established.
On one hand, the aboriginal groups are trying to get something we already have and they want to take it over and run it themselves. On this end, with the number of people you have there, it sounds like...we talk about community governments, we talk about self-government and land claims, the whole intention of the claims is to set up an economic base. The idea of self-government is to eventually control and take over the aboriginal communities so you do not have municipalities, band councils, Metis locals, and that you take over the institutions that are there.
By doing that, you are going to end up centralizing the whole institution to be one institution. The way it is right now, it is all splintered among all different agencies and groups. As a government, for the amount of money and the people we have in here, we are restricting the First Nations people from really doing what they want to accomplish.
I would like to ask the Minister exactly what role do these people play at the table, besides dictating what is in the Municipal Act or saying...what do they see in regard to the establishment of regulations or by-laws that are in effect? The different claims groups will have the ability to generate revenues, to establish by-laws, to implement laws.
The concern I have is because of the role this department plays, I feel it is threatening the whole concept of self-government. The aboriginal concept versus the government concept is like two different worlds.
What I see happening is we are trying to do away with the Indian Act on one hand, but on the other hand we are trying to not be what we have now, which is a municipal council. We want to generate something that reflects those two mechanisms, but what I see happening here is that the government is imposing that this is the way it is and that is the end of it. You have to take the municipality plus the by-laws plus the Municipal Act and that is the way it is going to be.
What kind of a mandate do they have and why do you have so many people involved in that process from this department?
