Thank you.
Honourable members, chiefs, and others who are here, I wear a few different hats, but with regard to our first nation and our development corporation, I'm both working as president of our corporation and also assisting my own first nation in Old Crow in trying to implement some of the capital programs, trying to utilize some of the federal funding that's coming forward as well.
I'll give just a really brief history. The Vuntut Development Corporation is about the fourth corporation over the last two or three decades—probably three decades—in our community. The other three ended in failure, basically bankruptcy. We started this corporation in 1999 and tried a slightly different approach with strategic planning and followed one basic rule. The first basic rule of our corporation was “Do not invest in the local store as your first investment”.
Because of that, we were able to actually look elsewhere, as Chief Johnston mentioned. One of our first key investments was Air North, and that has been a very important investment for us. I believe I'm going to speak on that this afternoon as part of your transportation discussion.
It just goes to show what was occurring in aboriginal communities when it came to economic development. We knew we needed corporations to spearhead certain economic initiatives, but we weren't quite sure how to properly implement them and the necessary funding wasn't always behind them. So the failures taught us a lot in our community. It's easy to do business—or I should say it's easier to do business—in maybe more southern locales where there is higher property tax revenue, higher property values, and more opportunities. But ours is an experience of a small corporation still being successful—and I would say profitable—in a community with very limited resource development potential. It has been baby steps since 1999, ones that have allowed us to nurture our various investments, whether it's Air North, whether it's one of the top air-viewing-potential operations in the world, whether it's our heavy equipment or operations or some of the property investments we have in Whitehorse. Our corporation intends to be on the leading edge of the revitalization of the waterfront here in Whitehorse.
Now, one of the things some people have talked about is that it is hard to access funding through the different federal envelopes, and those envelopes are forever changing. I would say, though, that our corporation has been quite successful, since about 2000, in accessing federal economic development programming. It hasn't been without hitting our heads against many walls, but we have accessed funding in probably seven different initiatives, including a very substantial one around Air North's assistance in acquiring our second jet aircraft.
So there are opportunities there. There are many hoops and many hurdles, but you can work through some of those. I would say, though, that one of the things I've noticed is that from 1993—when we go back to our agreements being negotiated—I think we've slowly been losing some of the community economic development focus. So our corporation can access funding, and we have been able to, but individual entrepreneurs in our own communities find it very difficult. And it's not our role as a development corporation to do that. It's a role that exists between the first nation government and our community and the Yukon government as well as, I believe, the federal government. So we have a lot of entrepreneurs who can't get the business start-up, can't find the seed money, or can't get some of the business backup that's necessary for a good successful business.
One of the things I see is that the new Northern Economic Development Agency.... I think the money could be used elsewhere, but I also think there's a benefit to the agency, and part of this benefit may be to assist our entrepreneurs. What's still missing, though, is some of that key start-up money that I think has sort of disappeared, especially at the individual level.
Back in 1992 or 1993, there were economic development officers in almost every Yukon community, funded through economic development agreements between the Yukon and the federal government. They were of great assistance at the community level.
What we do now--and I'm sure Gary will speak to this too--is try as much as we can, through our corporation, to provide some support, but we recognize that we can only do so much as a corporation.
I have a couple of other points on our community, if I may.