statements. It was clear that Canada took its obligations under the Covenant very seriously and that, since the submission of Canada’s initial report, many measures had been taken to protect human rights. At the same time, it was noted that some of the concerns expressed by 99. members of the Committee had not been fully allayed. The situation with and especially its indigenous peoples, was regard to Canada’s minorities, The hope was expressed that the Federal Government still a source of concern. would continue its constitutional reforms to facilitate the indigenous peoples’ movement towards autonomy and that problems encountered by indigenous peoples would be rapidly settled in a spirit of equity and respect for the rights enshrined in the Covenant, in particular in its articles 2, 26 and 27. Persons belonging to ethnic, religious or linguistic minorities should not be denied the right, in community with the other members of their group, to enjoy their own culture, to profess and practise their own religion, or to use their own language/and assistance programmes should contain measures that would ensure the minority groups’ participation and full incorporation into Section 33 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, which society. provided for a derogation clause, did not appear to be compatible with article 4 of the Covenant. Although Canada’s policy towards asylum seekers was very liberal, the accumulation of applications for asylum and the system adopted by the Canadian Government to accelerate the processing of applications for asylum, in which a kind of target group was selected, were source6 of concern. Other areas of concern included trade union rights and the right to collective bargaining; the question of the applicability of article 14 of the Covenant to administrative decisions: the differences between provincial legislation and federal legislation in the field of human rightsi the discrepancies between different province6 in respect of the length of pre-trial detentioni and the minimum age for pre-trial detention. 100. The representative of ths State party thanked the members of the Committee for the dialogue they had carried on with the Canadian delegation and assured the Committee that the issues that had not been covered during the consideration of the reports would be dealt with in the next periodic report. The Canadian authorities took their role in promoting the provisions of the Covenant at an international level very seriously and the appreciation expressed by the Committee had been a great eacouragesnent in that task. 101. In concluding the consideration of the second and third periodic reports of Canada, the Chairman expressed satisfaction at the outcome of the dialogue with the Canadian representatives. The reports, together with the explanations provided by the delegation, had given the Cormnittee useful information about national practice and the implementation of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. The discussion with the delegation had also allowed the Committee to shed new light on the relationship between articles 1 and 27 of the Covenant. -25-