Indigenous and Northern Affairs Committee on May 28th, 2015

[John Barlow, Conservative, Macleod, AB]

Everyone will be a little bit different.

We had the Aboriginal Financial Officers Association of Canada here the other day, with Terry Goodtrack talking about a program they have for training administrators and managers on first nations. Is this something you would work with?

It sounds like there are some other really encouraging spin-offs from this program in terms of training people on first nations. It isn't simply a case of we are coming in, we are going to build a house, and then we are going to leave. This sounds like there are going to be some lasting benefits from this, not only in terms of housing but also in terms of their financial literacy, those kinds of things. Is that what you've set up, but they're not necessarily ready to take on the financial management and the financial administration side? As part of the program, are you training financial managers and administrators to be part of that first nation, once they come under the program?

[Deborah Taylor]

Yes, we have several individuals who have received their certification through the Aboriginal Financial Officers Association—either their designation for accounting, or their designation for public administration—and we have also funded more than 150 people to take courses toward those designations. So we have a good working relationship with AFOA both at the individual and community levels, in supporting literacy and financial training for leadership and administration in communities across the country.

[The Chair, Conservative, Blake Richards]

Thank you very much.

That concludes our questioning for the day.

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

Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Conservative, Blake Richards]

Did you have a point of order?

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

I just want to ask you if you could entertain asking Mr. Beaucage if he could send to the clerk his response on the question that I asked about the infrastructure funds. I'd like an answer.

[The Chair, Conservative, Blake Richards]

He is certainly welcome to send it. We do have some committee business to do so if he would like to send it, that's certainly at his discretion.

I will now just suspend the meeting briefly and we'll clear the room so we can move to a brief session of committee business.

[Proceedings continue in camera]