Indigenous and Northern Affairs Committee on May 26th, 2015

[Earl Dreeshen, Conservative, Red Deer, AB]

Mr. Faille, you had mentioned this great story of a band where I think there was 70% unemployment and which now brings in people because their businesses are moving along so well.

Again, we hear of so many great stories. The media, of course, only talks about the negative ones, but when we can talk about some of the ways that people have been able to transition and use the capital that they have or come up with innovative ways to set their businesses up, I think that's critical.

Could any of you who have had or seen those kinds of experiences through your organizations or simply just through your communications with aboriginal groups fill us in on them?

[Maxime Faille]

It's a complex issue to be certain and, as you say, there are many success stories out there. What drives that success is really a combination of factors. Leadership is extremely important.

Frankly, the extent to which a community has or has not been affected by residential schools is a major factor for the viability or capacity of those communities. The residential school effects are still being felt in many communities and that has a significant impact. And there's the relative proximity of communities to an urban centre.

So not to take anything away from Whitecap, for instance, who have done a wonderful job, but certainly their proximity to Saskatoon is a benefit. A lot of communities don't have that opportunity to be so close to a major urban centre.

[Earl Dreeshen, Conservative, Red Deer, AB]

So then are people tapping into that mentorship?

[The Chair, Conservative, Blake Richards]

I'm sorry, Mr. Dreeshen, but your time has expired.

We'll move now to Ms. Ashton, who I think is going to share some of her time with Ms. Hughes.

[Niki Ashton, NDP, Churchill, MB]

Yes, just quickly. One of the challenges in this study is that we're not hearing from first nations directly. You shared the story of Whitecap, and we've heard about the experiences of isolated northern first nations. You're certainly gleaning from your wisdom and the work that you do, but how important do you think it is for us to hear directly from first nations when it comes to this issue of access to capital? Is that critical to our being able to formulate a clear and more accurate picture of what we're talking about today?

[Clint Davis]

I'm from the far north and so I think it's very important.

I don't know what your process would be, but if there's a chance for this particular committee to get out to the communities, to actually see them and maybe hold one of your meetings in one of the communities.... It could be in one or two that are relatively close to urban centres, but if you could actually get out to a more remote community that is maybe experiencing some challenges, I think that would probably be very eye opening for everyone around the table.

It certainly is eye opening for me when I get out there and see it as well.

[Carol Hughes, NDP, Algoma—Manitoulin—Kapuskasing, ON]

Thank you very much.

I think it has been touched on a bit through the addition to reserves a while ago, but more so as well in terms of being able to have final agreements reached when it comes to large and larger land use agreements or land claim agreements. I think that has been a big challenge, because to be able to move forward on projects and have access to any type of capital you need the land base as well.

The other piece there that I would like you to maybe elaborate on a little bit is the need for infrastructure, because sometimes it's very difficult, for the most part, to attract someone to your community if you don't have that infrastructure. So you could have access to capital, but if you don't have the infrastructure and land, you can't move forward. Could you explain that a little bit.

[Maxime Faille]

I think it goes without saying that these are all interrelated and moving parts, and that greater access to land is critical in order to have the land base on which to support additional infrastructure and be able to generate revenues that can support financing of projects and so on. It's critical.

On infrastructure issues, I quite agree. If a business is deciding where to situate themselves, what do they look at? They look at the workforce and the infrastructure, and all those things go into the cost, so it goes without saying that it is a very important factor.

[Carol Hughes, NDP, Algoma—Manitoulin—Kapuskasing, ON]

So you have had situations where first nations are looking at moving forward, or businesses or individuals are willing to move forward, but this is the impediment they're facing.

[Maxime Faille]

I wouldn't say that I've worked directly on a project or instance where something like that has arisen. It would be more by way of general observation that businesses are obviously going to make decisions in their interests. Sometimes they have to be where that particular place is, if you're dealing with a natural resource and so on, because that's where they can access it. But even there they may have a choice. Take potash for instance. There may be lots of different places where they can get that potash.

If it's within reserve land, that is potentially a great opportunity for that community if they decide to develop that particular resource. What is the legal regime surrounding access to that particular resource? Is that going to be an impediment to business? What is the infrastructure that's in place? What is the workforce and so on? Those are all decisions that are inevitably going to feed in to an investor or a project proponent in deciding where they're going to develop.

[The Chair, Conservative, Blake Richards]

You have thirty seconds.

[Carol Hughes, NDP, Algoma—Manitoulin—Kapuskasing, ON]

Mr. Goodtrack, you mentioned a while ago that you've trained about 527 CAFMs. I'm just wondering if they are from different communities or the result of a turnover in most of the same communities. How many first nations communities, because there over 600, have actually been accessing this? Is it just because there are turnovers?

[Terry Goodtrack]

I think it's a combination.

[Carol Hughes, NDP, Algoma—Manitoulin—Kapuskasing, ON]

And are there barriers to other participants to be able to able to participate?

[Terry Goodtrack]

I think that in any organization there is certainly turnover, but I find that in the northern communities there's less turnover. Some research that we were doing in the Ring of Fire communities indicated that people are in those positions for 10-plus years and that their education levels are typically college level at the most. I guess you would say right now that it's kind of right in our wheelhouse in terms of what we do with the CAFM and CAPA programs. So certainly there is some turnover.

We haven't been in every community, essentially because training dollars are not really available. It's one of those things that go first. Certainly we have a good partnership with the first nations market housing fund, and some of scholarships and that kind of stuff certainly help, but more in that area is certainly needed.

Every one of our chapters keeps statistics on the communities and so forth, and we're nowhere near the full amount of the communities we could be in, but it's a function of the dollars that are available and where the community is at in that situation.

[The Chair, Conservative, Blake Richards]

Thank you.

That ends our list of questioners for today.

I want to thank our witnesses for being here today.

The meeting is adjourned.