The systemic barriers that indigenous people face start with legislation, the Indian Act. There is still an act called the Indian Act, which makes me a ward of the state. I'm not even my own person. I'm basically a child of the government. We don't own our own lands on our communities. We can't take security. We don't have any generational wealth because we've been excluded from the economy for so long. Everybody was able to buy a house, but we were not allowed to buy houses. We don't have money that we can pass down to our kids, so we're basically starting from zero. We really need to ensure that we produce the access to capital.
NACCA recently launched the indigenous growth fund. This is an institutional-grade investment tool that allows the private sector to invest in an investment vehicle that will, in turn, be accessed by our members, who can pass it on to our indigenous entrepreneurs. There is a vehicle for access to capital that will be perpetual into the future and will continue to grow. Investors and social-impact investors.... That is $35 trillion globally that we'll be able to earn in interest from our market. These are creating tools to plug into the indigenous economy.
We're at the very infant stage of developing this indigenous economy; 300-plus court cases affirm our rights and title to our lands. Major projects, resource projects, the drive to critical minerals, are going go through our communities and our lands. The sooner government and corporations accept the fact that we need to be partnered with indigenous communities and create the conditions to allow us to participate, the more prosperous Canada will be.
Thank you.