Indigenous and Northern Affairs Committee on May 26th, 2009

[Michael Wernick]

Thank you for the question. There's a lot we could talk about. I'm conscious of the time and I will be very brief.

As I'm sure you're aware, last year's budget committed to a renovated aboriginal economic framework and suite of programs. The programs we have date from the early 1980s. We need things that are more geared to entrepreneurship and business creation. We've done a lot of consultation on this. We have a national advisory board. There are assets in every community, whether it's the people, the location, entrepreneurship, access to resources. Sometimes the very isolation is the asset, for ecotourism purposes and so on.

So what we need is a suite of tools that really allows the entrepreneurship in the community to emerge, and we're hoping that we'll very soon have a new suite of programs and an overall framework. Economic development is the same everywhere in the world. It's capital, business knowhow, people skills, and levering the assets you have. There is lots of room for optimism in aboriginal communities as well.

[Harold Albrecht, Conservative, Kitchener—Conestoga, ON]

It's very encouraging to see that a lot of study has gone into even the isolated communities, and your point about sometimes the isolation being their actual advantage is well taken. I think we need to be reminded of that. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Conservative, Bruce Stanton]

Actually, we still have some time here.

Madam Crowder?

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

Just really quickly, I have a B.C. question, of course.

Because of the way the estimates are outlined, I can't tell if the B.C. first nations education has been funded as a result of that legislation. I know there are ongoing discussions about funding, and I know it was still up in the air as of a couple of months ago.

On the second B.C. question, I notice there's a reduction in loans to first nations in B.C. for supporting their participation in the B.C. treaty process on 15(2). I'd like to know about that, given that there are so many treaties outstanding there.

[Michael Wernick]

Yes. The second one is simply the state of the various tables and the views of the treaty commission on what's needed. We've actually made so much progress on AIPs and finals that they may not need as much loan funding. We hope to have more treaties this year to join the Maa-nulth and the Tsawwassen and some of the others. And we're in active negotiations right now with FNESC, as we speak.

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

Will there be any conclusion soon?

[Michael Wernick]

It would be inappropriate to negotiate through the committee room, but we do appreciate the importance of this, not just to B.C. first nations but as a demonstration project of how we can move forward on K-12 education.

[The Chair, Conservative, Bruce Stanton]

And continuing to work in the same five-minute slot, we have a bit of time left, and Mr. Bagnell has a very short question as well.

Mr. Bagnell.

[Larry Bagnell, Liberal, Yukon, YT]

Yes. Michael, do you know what my question is? It's on the Carcross First Nation. We signed into law that they're allowed to take down a service, have an agency of their own, whether we like it or not, whether it's efficient or not. That's in the law. I think your letter directing them to go work with other governments is basically breaking the law. I'll leave it.

[Michael Wernick]

We would never knowingly do anything that breaks the law. The letter was vetted by our lawyers. We will fulfill the treaty, and if they want to take down the jurisdiction, we will do that. I simply said to the first nations that there are a lot of problems in child and family services agencies south of 60 that are caused by very small scale...and that before they leap into a small micro-agency, we would encourage them to talk to their neighbours in the territorial government. If they decline to do that, of course we'll go into direct discussions with Carcross.

[The Chair, Conservative, Bruce Stanton]

Thank you, Mr. Bagnell.

On behalf of all the members, ladies and gentlemen, I appreciate your time and your presentations here this morning. They were very thoughtful.

Members, we are going to have a brief suspension. If you don't need to get out of your chairs, that would be advisable because we need about five minutes to answer questions on the schedule. We'll suspend again.

[Proceedings continue in camera]