Environment committee  Thank you, Mr. Chair. To the committee, thank you so much for accepting our request to provide a submission here. We do, of course, have our full submission. Our apologies; we only have it in English. I will provide an overview of our full submission. It does include 27 recommen

Finance committee  Well, that again is a good example of why I'm recommending that we strike a senior officials task force to examine some of the mechanisms that would unleash some of the economic potential, but not to do it in isolation of what Mr. Martin was alluding to, and that is, the relation

Finance committee  I think it's absolutely critical. I've been reaching out to universities, to civil society, and will want to reach out to the associations of the likes we're sitting with here to suggest, as the member is, that we do need to work together to address this for this committee and th

Finance committee  Thank you. I think that speaks in large part to why we would suggest the striking of a joint senior officials task group to examine these issues and the relationship between the negotiations that have been happening in places like British Columbia, but not isolated to B.C. We ca

Finance committee  Absolutely, and it's across the full, complete, broad policy spectrum that this 2% cap applies. I'm focused in on one area—education—which has a lot to do with potential for economic development. Economic development, because of the 2% cap, is completely stifled right now. If I

Finance committee  Yes, that cap was implemented externally and arbitrarily back in 1996, and that's a cap on spending increases on all core services. As I mentioned, that 2% figure has been either equal to or below the average inflation rate, but at the same time, our community has been the fastes

Finance committee  Thank you.

Finance committee  Thank you, Mr. Chair. I really appreciate the opportunity to make a submission today, and we will build on a previous pre-budget submission that we've made. Thank you to the members for having me here. The Assembly of First Nations advocates for and supports over 600 first nati

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  Thank you for that. I share in wanting to acknowledge Treaty No. 6. Even though my community is a non-treaty community on the west coast, the elders have quoted Treaty No. 6 all my life. To hear that you, after so many years in teaching, have obviously an awareness picks up on M

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  Thank you. I think the Aboriginal Healing Foundation needs to continue to be supported. Experts agree that it takes at least 10 years for the kinds of programs that are being implemented. I can speak from personal experience, from my own community on the west coast, that it take

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  Thank you for that. I think we have to build on the areas that have worked as well as pay attention to what hasn't worked, where process becomes about process, and we become bogged down. I'm always mindful of what my father told me when I was a kid in school. He said there's th

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  What we're talking about—and we can link it to issues such as funding—first of all is that first nations have an incredible amount of reporting to do to the federal government. There have been efforts to reduce the level of reporting first nations have experienced, but it takes u

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  I completely agree. A major area of concern that would perhaps suggest a way forward in our work is the comprehensive claims policy. I mentioned the Specific Claims Tribunal Act effort because it was a joint first nations-government exercise. It produced a bill. Perhaps we need

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  Thank you. I just saw a report from Indian and Northern Affairs that actually suggests first nations are not leaving the reserves in great numbers. It's recent data, and I think it would be important to have that information brought forward, because it's new information. There h

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  We haven't had the full joint legislative effort offered or agreed to that we would like.