Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
I want to join my colleagues in welcoming you to the committee today.
I'm grateful for the opportunity to sit in on these meetings. As you are aware, I introduced Bill C-575 back in October 2010.
I want to collect my thoughts around some of the things you have referenced in your opening statements and in some of your answers. You referenced the first nations fiscal management law. Is that correct?
Then you referenced the resolution passed in December 2010 by the AFN. And then, in response to some other questions, you have talked about first nations having the right to choose their governance priorities and how they will begin to define, perhaps, their financial accountability.
The absence of first nations choosing to share this information with their membership—which quite frankly seems to be the case for so many first nations members, certainly the ones I spoke to and those I continue to hear from to date—was the impetus for my introducing Bill C-575. They cannot access the financial information relating to their band. They ask for it; sometimes they get it, but many don't. Then they have to ask the minister to make this information available to them under the terms of their funding agreement.
My question to you is, why should these members have to ask the minister to release this information to them?