Good morning. My name is Louis Harper. I work with Chief Kent, Dr. Lavallee and also Leona Star.
Good morning, honourable members of the committee. My presentation this morning, due to time constraints, is in the form of statements—an abridged version that would otherwise have been a detailed presentation on the requirement of self-government as a basis for improved and effective delivery of services in our communities.
In a spirit of reconciliation, we make the following statements and suggestions with respect to capacity-building, funding and retention of professional service providers in our community, in relation to going beyond the Indian Act governance regime.
We believe that new, alternative governance structures, conducive to first nations customary laws and their cultures, values and beliefs, must be put in place as the main feature in providing services in first nations communities.
There are numerous nations in our territories. We believe that first nations must undertake a process of nation rebuilding as collectives to identify culturally appropriate governance structures, systems and service delivery. We believe new governance structures must be designed by first nations to foster a sense of ownership and institutional integrity and sustainability.
As part of the institutional rebuilding, we believe that first nations should build a college of nursing or a college of physicians and surgeons, with the same accreditation as the rest of the country, to recruit people to those professions. In the alternative and in the interim, an aggressive program should be instituted to recruit students to the medical profession.
Depending on the design of the new government structures, we believe an establishment of a civil service of nation-based self-government with a training component will enhance capacity, a pool of expertise and retention of employees.
Again, depending on the design of the new government structures, we believe in establishing aggregated and central management of services delegated by first nations, for example health services, as part of the concept of institutional self-government per se.
Last but not least, we believe that as part of the self-government agreements, a land base should be identified to generate own-source revenue as a supplement to federal transfer funding to sustain first nations government funding.
This is my portion of the presentation.
Thank you.