Indigenous and Northern Affairs Committee on May 28th, 2009

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

Thank you.

Thank you very much for coming today.

I was a municipal councillor in British Columbia and am very familiar with the MFA and what an important resource it was to municipalities in order to be able to lever in other dollars to do some of the infrastructure building.

I notice that in your brief and also in the supporting documentation you're talking about the need for regulations. I think you're well aware that the regulations don't have to come before Parliament, so what's getting in the way of having the regulations developed and implemented?

[Deanna Hamilton]

It's just to secure the time of the bureaucrats to be able to finalize the regulations. It's already drafted; the final strokes just have to be put on it and then it goes through the system, of course, through the Department of Justice, etc., to be finalized. The draft is with the Department of Indian Affairs at this time.

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

The process right now is it has to go through the Department of Indian Affairs, then go to the Department of Justice—

[Deanna Hamilton]

That's correct.

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

—then be gazetted and all that stuff?

[Deanna Hamilton]

That's right.

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

So the Department of Justice hasn't been at the table throughout the drafting process, then?

[Deanna Hamilton]

It has been. A gentleman by the name of Paul Salembier has been working on the file with us. He is under contract to the Department of Indian Affairs to do that, from the justice section. But now it would still have to be formalized through the regulation process.

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

What will the regulatory process allow you to do that you're not doing now?

[Deanna Hamilton]

Right now, we have the legislation, which has all the bases in it, but the regulation will allow it to be able to apply to all sorts of revenue, versus the one place under the FSMA that everybody had a hand in, property taxation. So it may look like a property taxation bill, when in fact it is for many other purposes, as long as you have the regulation that can be supported by the documentation.

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

So under the current system, can you look at other sources of revenue?

[Deanna Hamilton]

Yes, all sources of revenue.

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

You can currently do that. So what's the difference—

[Deanna Hamilton]

No, not unless we have the regulations.

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

Okay. The point I'm making is that currently all you're able to do is look at property tax.

[Deanna Hamilton]

That's correct.

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

The regulations would allow you to expand that revenue base—

[Deanna Hamilton]

That's right.

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

—in order to lever additional funds, which seems like a very good thing.

[Deanna Hamilton]

Yes.

We are ready to do the property taxation now, but what we're now doing is expanding on our other mandates, which is the other revenues, and also for other people with arrangements other than property tax--for self-governing, treaty, and other groups to be able to take their regulation and fit it. There is a provision to link those two, so then we'd be able to provide them the services as well.

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

Yes, because many bands have other revenue streams, and it would seem like a really viable way to lever in additional money, like most other governing bodies are able to do.

[Deanna Hamilton]

Yes.

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

Did you have something to add to that?

[Dr. Tim Raybould]

I think it's important, since we're talking about the north and economic development, to point out that in the north we have the land claims and the self-government agreements, and all of those self-government agreements make provisions for public finance. But in order for that to actually be effective, given the economies of scale, those communities--as do the communities in the south--really need to pool their borrowing and go to the markets collectively.

One of the regulatory powers under our act allows us to make the FNFA applicable to communities that are not Indian Act bands, communities that are self-governing, communities with modern treaties--predominantly the northern first nations, northern aboriginal groups, who are not first nations, and also to communities in the south that have modern treaties. So Tsawwassen is one of our clients, one of our members that needs this regulation in order to be able to use the FNFA.

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

Yukon would be another.