Yes, I'd be happy to. Thank you for the request.
For the bands that did participate in the tax agreements, as I said, literally thousands of jobs were created. Millions of dollars were generated.
In the first introductions to business for some of these communities—though, mind you, it wasn't perfect—the intent was to negotiate for even more tax room with the province. They were willing to do that, but they couldn't get past the fact that we built a casino on the reserve and they wanted that to be part of it. That one operation generated $14 million, 20 years ago, per annum, and this is in a considerably rural area. As I mentioned before, 80¢ of every dollar leaves a reserve within 24 hours. We were generating $14 million from one operation. We had hundreds of people employed. We were attracting buses from as far away as New Hampshire in the United States; Sydney, Cape Breton, in Nova Scotia; and the north shore of the St. Lawrence, from Quebec. They were coming to spend money within our community.
It's important to note also that, because of that dollar leaving the reserve, the benefit isn't just enjoyed by our community. There is a ripple effect to the economic benefit as it rolls out around because we leave the reserve to buy our commodities, our manufactured goods, so there's a sharing of the wealth. The whole province benefits from seeing 15 economically deficient communities change over to 15 communities enjoying prosperity.
