The issue with the first nations finance act is that, like many of the institutions Canada has set up for indigenous people, it leaves out self-governing nations. It deals with Indian bands on Indian reserves and it doesn't provide for access to the bonds for self-governing nations. The amendments that have been developed, again, deal only with Indian bands. All the changes exclude self-governing nations.
This has been a challenge that indigenous governments with self-governing agreements and comprehensive land claims have faced since the very first modern treaty. While Canada is entering into these agreements, it's not changing any policies or processes. The government is not looking at the institutions it's developing and ensuring that this is done in a way that addresses the commitments and changes that have been brought about by these new agreements. Self-governing nations are falling through the cracks when Canada is developing solutions.
The First Nations Finance Authority and the processes that are set up there are important. It's an important tool for indigenous governments, but the way it's been established and the way these amendments have been developed again eliminates access for self-governing nations. This means those nations either have to borrow funds at a much higher rate or save the money before they can spend it.
The challenge there is that when you save that money, it has been used as a challenge in negotiations with Canada. You've saved that money and you have a big surplus in the bank, but it's because you don't have access to financing, so that's the only way you can accumulate the capital you need to develop infrastructure in your communities.
The only way programs and services designed to eliminate the gaps between indigenous Canadians and non-indigenous Canadians are going to be successful is if we have the kind of infrastructure necessary to ensure there's clean water, safe housing and a community that's equal to what other Canadians take for granted.
We need the federal government to work with us. This is a topic we're dealing with in the collaborative fiscal process, which consists of all but one of the self-governing nations in Canada working collectively in an effort to develop a comprehensive fiscal arrangement with Canada. That is what we need.
One of the challenges is that everything to date has been done in silos and in isolation, so it limits the benefits of each of those things. We need it to be done in a comprehensive way, so that we can access the resources we need, but we also need it to be done in conjunction with a fiscal relationship that ensures that indigenous governments get the appropriate share of the wealth that's generated from their territory and are able to then use that to provide services to their communities.
We can't be expected to borrow our way out of poverty, but we need access to financing in order to deal with large expenditures that will then be amortized over many years. We need all of these pieces to come together, and we need the federal government to ensure that when it's developing laws and policies, comprehensive land claims and modern treaty nations are not left behind.