Thank you, Madam Chair.
I want to follow up for a moment on the issue of consultation. I was present in the summer in June when Minister Prentice and Chief Fontaine made the announcement of this new process, and it was clear to me at that point that there had been a lot of discussion prior to that event and a great degree of collaboration. There seemed to be agreement that this was the way to move ahead. Following that, there was a task force established in July to expedite the consultative process across Canada. In fact, if my information is correct, the first nations were given a significant amount of financial resources, $500,000, in order to help them carry out the consultation that was to occur.
My basic question is this. Was there adequate consultation at the regional level, whether that's provincial or even on a level beyond that, to help us as committee members to be assured that consultation occurred?