Thank you, Mr. Chairman, honourable members of the committee.
My name is Robert Louie. I'm chief of the Westbank First Nation and chairman of the Lands Advisory Board. It's always a pleasure to be before you, and I'm very honoured and thank you for this opportunity for me and our group here.
Our issue at hand today is on capacity-building, and our presentation will be on capacity-building, training, and professional development, and our proposed strategy therein.
Very briefly, to put our first nations participants into context, across the country we have 58 first nations signatories to the Framework Agreement on First Nation Land Management, 37 of whom are operational first nations. We have had 18 new first nations approved by the minister in February to be added as new signatories. We have five first nations that were previously parked, because of being inactive. Now they have all agreed that they wish to be active and are willing to move very quickly.
We also have 65 other first nations on the waiting list that have formal band council resolutions or letters of intent, that wish to proceed. Very recently, in the month of February, Deputy Minister Michael Wernick announced that the government is looking at supporting 100 new first nations to be added into the process. We believe that has Minister Duncan's support.
As you indicated, Mr. Chairman, we have some very expert people in the room on the topic of first nation capacity-building, training, and professional development, and we wish to proceed with our submission.
Very briefly, I would then like to turn it over to the chairman of our resource centre, Chief Austin Bear, and introductions to follow thereafter.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman and members of the committee.