In my community we started with a development with long-term leases. That quickly turned into a situation where we attracted a lot of first nations investing in property on reserve. They realized they would be able to utilize those revenues to get into small businesses--use those housing dollars to invest in themselves and have long-term certainty.
But we've had a lot of resistance from many bureaucrats within the Department of Indian Affairs to move down this path. I've also noticed a lot of disagreement between CMHC and the Department of Indian Affairs over which kind of housing approach should be taken.
The fundamental basis in the long term has to be a proper land title system that will allow first nations to utilize their lands to the optimum--not only individuals. Housing reflects the individual. But it's also important to maintain the underlying interest by first nation governments so they can continue to exert jurisdiction over those lands so they don't become checkerboard reserves. That will ultimately empower individuals, through the utilization of a true market-based housing approach, and allow them to get into first nations businesses and break down the economic barriers that prevent them from occupying any roles in the market-based economy.
First nations are really a huge part of the fiscal imbalance of this country, just the same as the provincial governments--