That's a good question, David. That's one of the things we're dialoguing about with regard to this new fiscal relationship with the crown.
As first nations people, each of us has ancestral lands, even treaty territories. For example, I'm from Treaty 4 territory. About 13 years ago, one pipeline was going across and we put a Treaty 4 tax in place. That pipeline had to pay to all 34 first nations that signed Treaty 4 $100,000 just for coming through Treaty 4 territory. I always called it “hush up and go away” money because we had a little bit of a slowdown of traffic on Highway 1. I was riding my old sway-back pinto there, slowing down traffic just to get attention to the issue that there should be an aboriginal tax for any industry to operate on our ancestral lands and our territories. That's a way of raising revenue.
Again, when you start talking about the economy, the GDP, and everything else, how else is it all raised? It's from the land and resource wealth of this great country, from Canada. From an indigenous person's perspective, how did the crown gain title? I'm starting to use the words “assumed crown sovereignty” and “assumed crown jurisdiction” because the concept of terra nullius, the doctrine of discovery...our legal rights as doctrine.
Having the ability to tax any company or business operating within our ancestral lands or our territories is one way of generating revenue.
On reserve.... The misnomer is that Indians don't pay tax. It's a misnomer. We pay every tax there is. There is only one that we don't pay because of section 87 of the Indian Act: personal property income situated on reserve. That's the only one. We pay GST. We pay PST. If you own a home, you pay taxes.
That would be one way of generating revenue, giving first nations the ability to tax any company or industry operating on their ancestral lands, throughout their treaty lands. That would be my answer to that. As well, own-source revenue is another way of generating revenue. Again, that's a whole separate item unto itself—that when businesses are successful they supplement. Even from my own little gas bar, my Tim Hortons gas bar at Little Black Bear in Fort Qu'Appelle, we used to supplement our post-secondary students support program. Our position at Black Bear was that anybody from Black Bear who wants to go to university is going to go to university, but the cap on post-secondary was there.
We supplemented that program from our own-source revenue because there's no better way out of poverty than a good education. That's one example.
Own-source revenue is another way, yes, but that's up to each individual first nation. I think, globally and on ancestral lands in treaty territories, having the ability to tax an industry operating there is the answer.