Evidence of meeting #40 for Indigenous and Northern Affairs in the 41st Parliament, 2nd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was loans.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Blake Richards
I'm sorry, Mr. Barlow, but your time is up.
Ms. LeBlanc now has the floor for five minutes.
NDP
Hélène LeBlanc NDP LaSalle—Émard, QC
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I think we have already briefly touched on this issue, but I wonder what we could do to remove the barriers to access to capital in the Indian Act.
Mr. Vincent could answer, followed by Mr. Johnston.
President and General Manager, Aboriginal Savings Corporation of Canada
The legislation would need to be changed. We have tried to do so on a number of occasions in the past. Describing the ins and outs would take a whole day, I think. The process is political and very complex.
In short, to answer your question, we should change the legislation, but since it is difficult to do so, for all sorts of reasons, good and bad, we must work with the legislation in its current form and find innovative solutions to overcome the obstacles it creates in terms of access to capital.
Manager, Community Futures North Central Development
I would agree. I think there need to be changes to the act. The act itself creates the dependency we talked about earlier. It puts limitations on first nations communities and individuals. We had this discussion yesterday. The relevance of the act to today's market probably isn't—
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Blake Richards
I'm sorry, Mr. Johnston, but I'll have to interrupt you there.
As you'll notice on the wall, we have some flashing lights. That means that members have to proceed to the House of Commons for votes now.
I want to thank all of our witnesses for being here today and for answering our questions. Thank you very much for your contribution to our study.
The meeting is adjourned.