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 can include the Atlantic and other areas of the country that negotiate under a comprehensive claims policy that dates back to 1986. The strong view of first nations is that it needs to be brought up to date, needs to reflect the developments that have occurred in common law. And the point of entry for all of us should be, in large part, the economic imperative to move our peoples out from conditions of poverty. Over the last three months in particular, I've travelled extensively. There are significant barriers that hold us back.
Now, speaking to this committee about issues around finance, first nations are not able to get their feet underneath them because of the arbitrariness of the fiscal transfers. It's a year-to-year basis. The 2% cap has been there for well over ten years and adversely impacts the entire policy spectrum of first nations, so that they're really unable.... It stifles, as I said earlier, entrepreneurship and economic development. It's linked with significant barriers that exist in the Indian Act that hold first nations back from economic development initiatives.
And to this committee, it's not like we're starting afresh. We've had the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples. In 2005, in my former role as B.C. regional chief, we came to a national report called “The Recognition and Implementation of First Nation Governments”. We've also done considerable work with the Attorney General's office and the Treasury Board Secretariat around models of mutual accountability, because we always get this issue, and it's been raised with others around this table: what are you doing about your areas?
Well, we have mechanisms that have been tabled. What's required is the political will, and perhaps for this committee to see that the point of entry should be around fiscal transfers, around economic self-sufficiency for communities, and addressing the fact that there are significant barriers to achieving economic success for first nations.