Environment committee  Excuse me?

Environment committee  First I'd like to say that I appreciate everybody sitting here and listening to the issues from Kanesatake and the surrounding municipalities. The main thing I'd like to get across is that the federal government has a fiduciary duty to the benefit, health and welfare of all first nations, including Kanesatake.

Environment committee  Mr. Nicholas will answer.

Environment committee  I believe it's $100 million plus.

Environment committee  Exactly. The only way to move forward is through collectiveness, and we don't have that. What we have right now is our five individuals who have gone into, I guess, protective mode, aggressive mode, rogue mode. They have gone very rogue. They're not even listening to our community members, who have the last say in everything, in every decision.

Environment committee  Yes, I've been to many meetings with Mayor Pascal Quevillon of Oka and also with the surrounding municipality mayors, who have all been in agreement. We have BCRs or resolutions from those municipalities in the MRC. They are all in agreement to work together, moving forward, for a resolution to rectify this issue and to push the federal and provincial governments to act on this—

Environment committee  —and on our health and welfare.

Environment committee  Yes, I have been, but we've had mediation before within the council, and during that mediation the Sûreté du Québec had to be called in because it was going to get physical. They've had to intervene in three of our meetings, so intervention—mediation—is out the window. That is why I requested third party management: It's because these individuals have control and signing authority for our funding, and they're just wasting our community funds on lawyers, which, in fact, were terminated by our community in May.

Environment committee  Yes, we've had those types of roadblocks, I guess, that we run into, but it just seems to me that the federal and provincial governments are passing the buck. Neither one of them wants to grasp or to take the reins of this issue fully, even though the federal government has offered suggestions and is floating agreements, I guess, until these five individuals on council agree.

Environment committee  Yes, it's doing the exact opposite of my request. As Grand Chief, I only gave this video request to the federal government out of respect, from my office, as I was trying to do some due diligence here, but I did not have to do that. I can go directly to my community and ask for veto power, and I do not want....

Environment committee  Yes, that is one of the three agreements proposed by the federal government: to have, I believe, the site assessed by their own people, by federal agents, I guess, or by federal entities that would do that. That is one of the reasons that these five individuals on my council are refusing that.

Environment committee  The Kanesatake Health Center usually takes care of the drinking water. They take water samples every other month, I believe. It could be more than that. Usually the drinking water comes back satisfactory. That's the main response that every community member receives. They have the opportunity to go further than that to do a deeper analysis of our drinking water, but I don't think too many members want to do that.

Environment committee  Yes, there is quorum among those five individuals, but we are a custom band. Our electoral code is a custom electoral code, and we practised our custom last night in the community meeting and voted those five members out. They have taken me and Chief Valerie Bonspille to Superior Court, as well as 12 of my community members, for standing up for our hereditary right and custom.

Environment committee  No, I have not. I sent multiple emails to her and, I believe, to one of her attachés, Natascha Barron-McNabb, to ask for conversations with her, but I haven't had any response, except.... The last response was when I asked for veto power. It didn't go anywhere.

Environment committee  Yes, that's correct. The owners of the G&R; site did revert the lands back, and they had to go through our lands department, but for some reason that I can't explain, the lands department decided to share that information with my cohorts on council, the five chiefs who are against this.