Evidence of meeting #41 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 nation.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Conservative
Kyle Seeback Conservative Brampton West, ON
When you're in, then you have all these other things that you have to do, isn't that right?
What's the process when you're in the developmental stage? You have to have a vote on reserve, you have to develop a land code.... What are all the requirements when you're in development?
Conservative
Chief, Muskoday First Nation, Saskatchewan, and Director, First Nations Lands Advisory Board
When a first nation signs an adhesion to the framework agreement, we enter into an agreement with the first nation on what we call the community action plan. That lays out all the requirements, from day one to the day they vote, and there are some milestones throughout that whole process that the first nation has to meet.
Once they meet the requirements of what we call a CAP—the community action plan—they then come to the vote date, and the members of the first nation approve the framework or the land code, and then they become operational.
Chief, Muskoday First Nation, Saskatchewan, and Director, First Nations Lands Advisory Board
But until that vote is secure, they're still under the Indian Act all the way through the process.
Conservative
Liberal
Carolyn Bennett Liberal St. Paul's, ON
Thanks very much.
Just continuing my question, I don't think BDC had a chance to say what they would like in terms of the way we get rid of some of these obstacles. Then, if Mr. McCue or the chief wanted to finish....
But what would make it easier for you to be more helpful?
Vice-President, Financing and Consulting, Manitoba, and National Director, Aboriginal Banking, Business Development Bank of Canada
Well, we're focused solely on entrepreneurs and entrepreneurship, so it would be building a passionate team. The team we have at BDC, although it's small, is very passionate to help aboriginal entrepreneurs succeed, on or off reserve. Where the business is situated is irrelevant. We need to help entrepreneurship in this segment.
It's taking the time to understand the challenges in the first nation communities and of our aboriginals who are not in first nation communities and encouraging them to start businesses. As we all know, there are opportunities to acquire businesses as a generation of entrepreneurs want to retire and sell. There are opportunities to continue growing our segments.
As we see in some areas in the north, northern projects are going to need entrepreneurship to service those projects, such as in the Ring of Fire in Ontario, on hydro projects in northern Manitoba, in the oil industry in Alberta, and in the logging industry. They all need services and entrepreneurship, companies that—
Liberal
Carolyn Bennett Liberal St. Paul's, ON
But I guess the question would be, does your unit, under the big umbrella of the BDC, get to do what you want to do? Do you feel that it's first nations-led? Do you feel that you're able to...or are you confined by BDC policies on risk and those kinds of things?
Vice-President, Financing and Consulting, Manitoba, and National Director, Aboriginal Banking, Business Development Bank of Canada
That's the benefit of being under BDC. We have the flexibility. We are mandated to take on more risk and we have the support to encourage entrepreneurship and to take on more risk—but prudent risk, as we still have to make money.
What is “prudent risk”? It's helping an entrepreneur on first nation lands and not having full recourse back to the first nation; that's prudent risk. It creates economic growth on the first nation and it doesn't have the comfort of being fully secured by the first nation, which—as Chief Bear has explained—is how they secure some of the financing for their members.
Liberal
Carolyn Bennett Liberal St. Paul's, ON
What you're saying is to clean up all the stuff that has been articulated as obstacles by the advisory board, and if you clean it all up, it will make your job easier.
Vice-President, Financing and Consulting, Manitoba, and National Director, Aboriginal Banking, Business Development Bank of Canada
It's not even cleaning up. It's understanding and working through it, one entrepreneur at a time.
Liberal
Carolyn Bennett Liberal St. Paul's, ON
But some of the obstacles that we're described, whether it's capacity, governance, education, infrastructure....
Vice-President, Financing and Consulting, Manitoba, and National Director, Aboriginal Banking, Business Development Bank of Canada
Yes, it would help.
Liberal
Carolyn Bennett Liberal St. Paul's, ON
It's hard to sell cottage land or to lease cottage land if the ferry doesn't work. There's some stuff that we know is ongoing that makes it difficult for people to be successful. This addition to reserve piece, it's hard to have the entrepreneur open their business on the highway if—
Vice-President, Financing and Consulting, Manitoba, and National Director, Aboriginal Banking, Business Development Bank of Canada
You can't get the highway there.
Chief, Muskoday First Nation, Saskatchewan, and Director, First Nations Lands Advisory Board
Some of the obstacles are evident from our distant past. There are a host of reasons. I'm not going to get into them and explain the devastation of the residential schools and the host of other impacts, but we must grasp and understand that the first nations, the majority if not all, are in the state of reclamation. We are now attempting to rebuild our nations.
In our recent history, that rebuilding is practically in its infancy. If you go back to the mid-fifties, my father and I needed a permit from an Indian agent to leave the reserve, so that's fairly recent. The reclamation, the rebuilding, is recent. We are in our infancy.
In the acceptance of some responsibility by Canada, in my opinion, Canada as a nation, its people, and government must come forward and say, “How can we better assist this reclamation and rebuilding of the original inhabitants, the first nations people of this country?” Those are the questions we have to ask ourselves. This would eliminate many of the obstacles and the uncertainties that first nations are experiencing each and every day.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Blake Richards
That ends our questions and answers for today.
I want to thank all our witnesses for being with us. Thank you for your statements and responses to the questions. It was very helpful to our study.
We'll just let members know that we do have a change of time and location for Thursday's meeting. We will be in 237C Centre Block and we'll begin at 9:30. Members will appreciate that, following the previous evening's committee of the whole, so 9:30 with P3 Canada for one hour, followed by committee business.
The meeting is adjourned.