Indigenous and Northern Affairs Committee on May 29th, 2024

[Jaime Battiste, Liberal, Sydney—Victoria, NS]

While our witnesses have said they love taxation, I'd say many status Indians would point to section 87 of the Indian Act, which exempts them from that taxation, as a benefit to their life.

Do you agree that, if we were to move forward with these ideas, there should be opt-in for chiefs and councils under the Indian Act, and that we would never force this on anyone? Would all four of the witnesses be agreeable to that?

[Clarence T. (Manny) Jules]

That's embedded in the legislation. It's all optional legislation.

The communities have to debate it internally with their own members as chief and council, and make their own decisions.

[Jaime Battiste, Liberal, Sydney—Victoria, NS]

I have 10 seconds left, and I want to make sure everyone is on board with it being optional.

[Chief Derek Epp]

Absolutely. All the institutions are optional and should remain that way.

[The Chair, Liberal, Patrick Weiler]

Harold.

[Harold Calla]

It has to be optional.

[The Chair, Liberal, Patrick Weiler]

Thank you very much, Mr. Battiste.

From here, we'll be going to our third questioner.

Mr. Lemire, you have the floor for six minutes.

[Sébastien Lemire, Bloc, Abitibi—Témiscamingue, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

The institutions led by the first nations under the First Nations Fiscal Management Act are working together to improve the support and tools provided to the first nations in order to help them strengthen their communities, build their economy and advance their vision of self‑determination. To make a significant impact, the federal government's commitments must be more focused. I believe that the time has come to place our trust in national indigenous organizations working in finance.

Two weeks ago, you met in Winnipeg to speak with one voice. Could you tell the committee what concrete and necessary measures you plan to call for immediately in order to create a critical mass for economic development by and for indigenous communities, in recognition of their capacities, skills and expertise?

It's an open question.

[Clarence T. (Manny) Jules]

Harold was in Winnipeg.

[Sébastien Lemire, Bloc, Abitibi—Témiscamingue, QC]

Mr. Calla, would you like to answer the question?

[Clarence T. (Manny) Jules]

Harold, you were in Winnipeg at the conference.

[Harold Calla]

I didn't get my translation. I sorted it out in my mind, so I don't know what the real question was.

Yes, I was in Winnipeg at the economic forum, for whatever that's worth at this point.

[Clarence T. (Manny) Jules]

I'll answer that one.

The gist of what happened is that I couldn't be in Winnipeg, because I was visiting a first nations community on the Campbell River that was looking at a prospective $14-billion hydroelectric project the chief is proposing.

The communities we work with think big and out of the box. What we've realized is that we have to work together. We can't work in isolation from one another. We have to come together on the basis of making sure there are standards, rules and regulations, and that there are transparencies for investment. We need to have an infrastructure institute to help us build our own facilities and buildings. We need to have tax room. We need to be accountable firstly to our members, as well as to others who wish to invest with us. It's really an economic mission.

What we want to achieve is economic reconciliation—the rights we believe are inherently ours as first owners of this land. As my ancestors said, we want to work together so that each of us will be great and good. The work is incomplete, and the myriad of federal legislation and indeed provincial legislation is huge.

We need the federal government to make the first critical steps, not restrict our growth in terms of tax jurisdiction. Open the doors so we can assume more and more tax jurisdiction to provide better economic development and growth, which benefits everyone.

[Chief Derek Epp]

Maybe I can build on that for you real quick.

I think it's important that you look at the several organizations and institutions that really support economic development and financial capacities for our first nations communities. There are still barriers to that. A lot of the smaller communities have issues becoming FMB certified. I'm sure Harold is well aware of that as well. It's a barrier. It's a gap.

There are ways to address that. As Manny said, there are large-scale resource projects or energy transition projects being proposed in many of our territories. We have to think differently about how we're addressing those. I was here this week talking a bit about the loan guarantee program, and talking about how we have to open up avenues for the First Nations Finance Authority to be able to utilize our lending ability to support those smaller communities who can't get FMB certification. We have to be able to access these revenue streams so that they have the capacity and the ability to work with individuals like Harold and his team to build their capacity, to hire CFOs, to hire CPAs, to be part of this economy, to leverage these tax streams and to then close the infrastructure gap and become players in this economy.

I think at the end of the day, it's all these organizations working together—First Nations Lands Advisory Board, FNFA, FNTC and FNII now—to help us support creating asset management plans for the infrastructure that is being installed with the tax revenue stream dollars that we have, and accessing capital. Access to capital isn't an issue anymore. It's having the revenue streams to do that.

[Sébastien Lemire, Bloc, Abitibi—Témiscamingue, QC]

Do these sources of revenue currently depend on transfers from the federal government?

[Clarence T. (Manny) Jules]

Basically, the First Nations Finance Authority has generated over $2 billion on the international global market. The First Nations Tax Commission, since our inception, has generated over $1 billion for first nation communities. When you translate that into an economic impact, you double that.

When you think about all the economic development and growth that all of our institutions have been involved in, it's not only an economic boom for the individual community; it's also an economic boom for the federal and provincial governments. Indeed, they get seven times more revenue from our developments than we get, and we're more transparent and more accountable.

One thing that I think is critically important is that we need first nation governments that have their own jurisdictions and unassailable revenue authorities that help exercise those jurisdictions. We need to implement our jurisdiction and fiscal powers in a way that attracts investment from our members and others to participate in the economy on equal terms with anyone else. That goes to the heart of what we've been advocating with regard to a first nations resource charge. We believe that when there's resource development within our traditional territories, to facilitate that, because it's all going to be within our traditional territories, we should get a benefit. That means the federal government has to cede tax room, as well as the provincial governments. By that I mean the indefeasible Crown.

The other thing goes to what Jaime's question was about—taksis, as I spell it, from the Chinook trade language in the Pacific northwest. Taksis means that, one, we help each other; two, we look after each other; three, we are not stingy with each other; and four, we are not jealous of each other. That means we need to have the responsibility ultimately to begin to look after ourselves. That changed in 1927.

You, sir, as a member of Parliament, are in an incredible position to be able to help us. In our language, we call the French the seme7úw'i, the ones who were firstly to our territory. We call you the “real whites”.

[Voices]

Oh, oh!

[The Chair, Liberal, Patrick Weiler]

Thank you.

[Sébastien Lemire, Bloc, Abitibi—Témiscamingue, QC]

I hope that the Conservatives took notes.

[The Chair, Liberal, Patrick Weiler]

Thank you, Mr. Lemire.

[Sébastien Lemire, Bloc, Abitibi—Témiscamingue, QC]

Thank you, meegwetch.

[The Chair, Liberal, Patrick Weiler]

With that, we'll go to our final questioner of the panel this evening.

Ms. Idlout, you have six minutes.

[Lori Idlout, NDP, Nunavut, NU]

Thank you so much, everyone, for appearing before our committee. Thank you to those on the screen as well.

I remember each of you, or most of you, anyway, from when we did the barriers to economic development in indigenous communities study. I found that study quite fascinating as well. You'll recall that we had also talked about monetization, so my first question will be to Derek.

One of the recommendations we made in that report was to “test monetization through a pilot project on replacing diesel generation in remote communities”. This study was back in 2022. What has the federal government's response been to your monetization proposal?

[Chief Derek Epp]

We'll wait and see. It's been talked about. We heard that there could be an announcement in the fall for monetization, but we haven't had any formal announcement on the monetization. The impacts, though, will be much greater than what we're feeling right now. If you're going off a cash-based system to try to close that infrastructure gap, then I'll be here when I'm Manny's age, talking about the infrastructure gap. I think that's the reality of where we're at. Somebody next to me will say, “I've been talking about taxes and monetization for 50 years,” then. When we monetize we'll be able to do exactly what you're talking about.

I'm fortunate I'm not from a rural community. I have access to services and to waste-water treatment, but we have a lot of communities that would benefit greatly from this. Even 10 minutes from my house, we have communities on boil-water orders, and they're right in the heart of Chilliwack, a municipality. There's no reason for that.

On the cash-based system of how the government is currently funding infrastructure projects, unfortunately, those communities are still going to be feeling those pressures, like relying on diesel generators and relying on boiling their water to feed their children bottles. I think that's the reality of where we're at. With these institutions, we could close the gap much quicker. An example that we gave is that, with a simple contribution of [Technical difficulty—Editor] $200 million, we can do $4 billion in infrastructure projects annually, which is much better than what we're doing right now.

[Clarence T. (Manny) Jules]

I just want to quickly respond as well.

During COVID we did an analysis of how much revenue first nations and their businesses generated, and it was in excess of $17 billion annually. This included all indigenous groups—we estimated to include the Inuit and the Métis—so our collective economy is larger than the Maritime provinces and the territories combined.

Investments in jurisdictional “optionality”, I guess, means that we're not just simply talking about billions of dollars, we're talking about literally trillions of dollars that first nations, Métis and Inuit could be generating for this country. When we talk about moving away from a dependence model, that's why: The system that has hampered us through colonization has meant that we're completely dependent on somebody else's largesse. We're grown up. We don't need numbers. You and I know what our numbers are.