Transcription
A205-1Clip15


Thursday April 12, 1973, at which time you were the chairman of the Standing Committee on Indian Affairs and Northern Development in which the previous minister, Honourable Jean Chretien, appeared as a witness and perhaps I can just read it, what I think is important and this is what we would like to re-affirm.

This is a statement that Jean Cretien made to the Committee, is that it?

I would like just to read it out. I quote what Jean Chretien says in answer to a question: "I have many problems with some Indians in British Columbia. The cut-off land question is a completely different problem. They were given some lands and the land was cut-off without the consent of the Indians. I wanted to alert the British Columbia government that some of the land in British Columbia had been cut-off and the provincial government should return the land to the Indians because it was cut-off without their consent. It is a different contract because it is land they had not under treaty, but allocated to them by Crown a long time ago." Based on that decision, and it was a public statement, we take it as a policy statement of the Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development, the position that the role of this Committee would be. Now that there has been a change in the Ministry in which you are now the new Minister, do you adhere to that same position?