Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you to all the witnesses for being with us this evening.
I want to begin by describing our actions in the Liberal Party vis-à-vis this issue, which the three aboriginal chiefs and the grand chief have presented.
Grand Chief Phillips, I think you'll remember that we had a meeting in my office. As a consequence of that meeting, I wrote a letter to Mr. Flaherty. I copied you. I hope you received it.
The one paragraph says, “Grand Chief Phillips has indicated to me that the Government of Ontario has shown some interest in establishing a working group to discuss this issue. Of course for such a group to have any chance of success, the federal government must be present. As the Department of Finance's annual performance report states that,”—this is in quotation marks, and I think this is an important part—“'the Department’”—that is, the finance department—“‘works with Aboriginal governments to negotiate tax treatment agreements.’ The dialogue between the Crown and the AIAI”—which is the Association of Iroquois and Allied Indians—“should therefore logically begin with you.”
This letter was sent on November 16. I haven't had a substantive response, and I assume, Grand Chief, that you haven't either.