Human Resources Committee on Dec. 5th, 2013

[Jean Crowder, NDP, Nanaimo—Cowichan, BC]

It would be important for us to get that out to our own stakeholders to make sure people are aware they can provide that additional input.

Thank you, Mr. Sutherland.

[The Vice-Chair (Ms. Jinny Jogindera Sims), NDP, Jinny Sims]

Thank you.

Back to Ms. McLeod.

[Cathy McLeod, Conservative, Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo, BC]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

I do appreciate the comments my colleague made.

I do see one option, in terms of really supporting the communities as they move forward, which will be the Canada job grant once it's up and running, because I think it will be a tool for all the population of Canada to work together for the available jobs.

There's one area we haven't talked about, and maybe it's not your area of expertise. At some point we should get some officials from some of the diversification agencies on the support for small entrepreneurs and small businesses to get going. Again, there is the community futures program. I know we have some specific aboriginal-targeted community futures.

Can you talk briefly about anything that is above and beyond the community futures program in terms of, say, someone wants to start a restaurant or these small entrepreneurs who are looking for support to get going?

[Allan Clarke]

There's a network of aboriginal financial institutions that are modelled to some degree on the community futures program. In fact, some of them are funded through the community futures initiative. There's an organization called NACCA, the National Aboriginal Capital Corporation Association, that supports the network of AFIs, aboriginal financial institutions, across Canada. You might want to consider inviting them to talk about some of the opportunities for small and medium-size enterprises across Canada.

We do support that network through our department, through our sector. We provide somewhere in the range of between $30 million and $40 million per year to leverage additional access to capital for small and medium-size aboriginal businesses. By all accounts, if you speak to NACCA and the AFI, they would consider the program to be quite successful. It has managed to leverage a lot of activity.

[Cathy McLeod, Conservative, Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo, BC]

Following on that, is there also some specific focus on tourism and tourism opportunities? Is that something supported through your department also? Again, is that something we should maybe explore a little bit?

[Allan Clarke]

The aboriginal financial institutions operate independent of government, so we support them in terms of their developmental lending requirements but it's up to them to analyze business cases and provide capital to the businesses themselves.

[Cathy McLeod, Conservative, Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo, BC]

I had understood, but maybe I'm wrong, that there was a completely separate structure involved with tourism.

[Sheilagh Murphy]

Maybe it's the regional development agencies that you need to speak to, who often have tourism targeted as one of the investment areas they do, and they will do the work with enterprise in the private sector. It would be CanNor, and Western Economic Diversification, and so forth.

[Cathy McLeod, Conservative, Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo, BC]

That sounds like a good additional set of witnesses.

I want to talk a little bit about on and off reserve and the ASETS holders. Quite typically, and I'll use the community I represent as an example, there's certainly a large on-reserve population, but probably an equally large off-reserve population that's served by the Interior Indian Friendship Society. Using the Shuswap Nation as an ASETS holder, are the interior friendship centres, almost all ASETS holders, typically ASETS holders? You have, as I say, fairly large populations and perhaps more off reserve than on reserve. Are there any sort of comparatives in terms of support?

[James Sutherland]

The friendship centres in and of themselves are.... We have an agreement with the national association for policy work. In Ontario, there's a specific friendship centre ASET agreement itself, but in most other places, the friendship centres usually work in collaboration with an ASET holder. It might be a point of service or it might even be a subagreement, but it is usually not the direct agreement holder with us.

[Cathy McLeod, Conservative, Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo, BC]

In that case, and again I'll use a local example, the off-reserve friendship centre would refer to the Shuswap Nation travel council, the ASET holder that's under that umbrella.

[James Sutherland]

If the ASET holder is a subagreement holder from either that particular ASET or another one, our expectation would be that they would do the services as they have been hired to do. If they are not, then we would hope that they would make a referral to the correct place. I think that the communication is usually strong enough that if they went to a friendship centre door rather than an ASET door, they would be directed to the ASET door.

[Cathy McLeod, Conservative, Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo, BC]

Again, this is of course very exploratory—

[The Vice-Chair (Ms. Jinny Jogindera Sims), NDP, Jinny Sims]

You have five seconds.

[Cathy McLeod, Conservative, Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo, BC]

Then I'll leave my exploration for another day, thank you.

[The Vice-Chair (Ms. Jinny Jogindera Sims), NDP, Jinny Sims]

Okay, thank you.

I want to thank staff from the department for making presentations to us.

Now we're going to ceremoniously thank you and ask you to leave because we're going to go in camera to discuss some committee business. The usual suspects get to stay while we go in camera.

[Proceedings continue in camera]