I don't disagree with any of the comments you made, and I thank you for acknowledging some of the problems that have been identified by Chief Jacobs, as well as others here today, on lack of consultation and so on.
Again, because we're talking tax, and that is the issue.... Health, yes. Now they've targeted organized crime and criminalization and so on as another aspect of that. It may sound like I'm trying to be comical here, but I'm not actually.
There is also a high incidence of lack of clean drinking water. There is a high rate of diabetes within our communities as well. I don't see a higher tax being put on the Big Mac; I don't see us being attacked for overeating or those types of things. If we're going to get down to the basics of what this is about, it's jurisdictional and it's about taxation. It's about the moneys that are not going into the external coffers. And there's a role to play for first nations communities because it has been identified, and we've said it here today, that we are the focus of the problem, at least our four communities, within this report.
The obligation of the Canadian government is to sit down with us in order to describe fully what it anticipates us doing, instead of ramming something through again and turning it into an enforcement issue, which we are very concerned about in our communities. My community as well--I won't speak on anybody else's behalf--is very concerned about some of the elements that have infiltrated it. But again, I say with all due respect, I think it's being clouded by other issues. We do have serious health concerns, whether it's smoking, whether it's diabetes, or others. To attack it this way I think is wrong. The Canadian government needs to come forward and say to us directly and sit down with us directly--and it will happen in the near future, I can guarantee it--on what the issues actually are.
It has been tried in the past through taxation, lifting it, dropping it, and so on, which has helped create some of the problems. We've identified some of the issues in the past, with conglomerates being involved. I think to attack it in this way is really to cloud the issue, with all due respect.