Transport committee  I want to highlight the project that Mr. Romoff has spoken about. There are a number of projects where indigenous communities have some equity that they could invest within their community in an opportunity also to bring revenue back into their community. It provides the chance for them to partner, to participate and to determine the outcomes of their community instead of the years we've been in place where our future was determined and planned for us.

Transport committee  My hope is that the government's commitment to address the water project will happen across the country with communities on its own, but we know the bank is looking specifically at revenue-generating projects in communities. A number of communities have those from ferries or from toll roads, for example.

Transport committee  I do think if we look at these two projects already, and NRStor's investment and their focus on being able to work with communities, particularly in green energy in remote and rural communities that are still particularly reliant on diesel generation, we see there is a real interest in private investment to work with those communities to get off diesel reliance.

Transport committee  Thank you. There is one other project that the CIB has, that's in their list, and that's an Oneida solar storage project. That's a partnership with NRStor for battery storage. From our perspective, we definitely see a number of other indigenous communities that have projects that are ready and in need of infrastructure spending.

Transport committee  Meegwetch. [Witness spoke in Ojibwa and provided the following text:] Aanii, Tabatha Bull n'indignikaaz, Nipissing n'indoonjibaa, Migizi dodem. [Witness provided the following translation:] Hello. My name is Tabatha Bull. I am from Nipissing First Nation, and I belong to the Eagle Clan.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  We've definitely done some thinking around this. We're working really closely with our other colleagues at the other national indigenous organizations who are here, in addition to NIEDB. We really need to look at what we need to do from a perspective of across indigenous economies.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  When we looked at our initial survey in terms of the StatsCan survey that was done through the Canadian Chamber of Commerce, we did see the [Technical difficulty—Editor] difficulty, so I expect we'll see something similar. Then of course if we look at [Technical difficulty—Editor] the high areas in social services.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  You're quite right. Thank you for acknowledging that with respect to indigenous businesses. We definitely do see that a number of businesses in the indigenous economy are very young—less than five years old—and with a number of these supports in particular, we had a number of members who had not yet filed a tax return and couldn't apply for a number of the wage subsidies.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  I know that Keith Henry at ITAC has developed a tourism economic recovery strategy for indigenous businesses. I won't speak too much to that because he is definitely the expert in that case. He has research on the requirement for additional funds. I would just say that if we look at the recent report of the Canadian Federation of Independent Business on business survival rates, in their second group of business survivors are professional services or health care services as the businesses that are of most concern in terms of not being able to survive.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  I agree with Shannin's points. I would just add looking at innovation dollars and set-asides or carve-outs for indigenous businesses that are able to pivot through the ISED innovation funding. Additionally, I would add a consideration for infrastructure projects as prioritized for those projects that have indigenous businesses as partners or owners of those projects or equity participation, so that we can continue to support, outside of procurement, any project we're putting forward with support for infrastructure or shovel-ready funding that we consider as having indigenous equity.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  When we did our survey in May and asked businesses how long they could operate without further supports, at that time, 2% of the close to 900 we surveyed had already closed, and 10% of businesses predicted they couldn't continue operation for more than a month without support. Knowing that there was a gap in the support that was provided, we have significant concerns over that 10%.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  I would say that I don't feel we're being consulted as much now as we were at the beginning of COVID.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  As organizations—and I'll let my colleagues speak to this as well—we're definitely reaching out and continuing to have discussions with Indigenous Services Canada. However, as I have been saying throughout this whole pandemic, these issues need to be across all of government and not only through discussions with Indigenous Services Canada and CIRNA.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  It's very important across all provinces. We're seeing this everywhere—the provinces, the municipalities and the federal government—on consistent messaging on restrictions and consistent messaging on business shutdowns and closures, and the requirements for them. We really need to look at how we're messaging that across all provinces and for all industries, but also ensuring that we are looking at a regional base as well.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  We have seen the set-aside procurement opportunities. The $2.5 million did come from a specific procurement call for indigenous businesses for masks, but there were 233 organizations that bid on that, and there were seven contracts. We definitely know there is opportunity there from indigenous businesses, and we know the government has more needs on purchasing masks.