Senator McCallum: I have spoken to Métis people, and I met with the Manitoba Métis Federation this morning. I have spoken to them about this amendment; they agreed with it. I said to them, “First Nations women are the matriarch of the Métis Nation because without them, and without the people who came over — the French, and the British — there would have been no Métis Nation.”

How can you say, Senator LaBoucane-Benson, that there were three groups here, when the Europeans hadn’t come, and there were only the First Nations? First Nations includes all the tribes that were here. It’s the original peoples — it is just that we can’t come up with one term. In Cree, we call ourselves nêhiyawak, but they didn’t take that into consideration — it’s human beings.

That’s why it is very important. This is truth and reconciliation. The truth is there were only First Nations and Inuit peoples when people landed here. Can you comment on that?