Evidence of meeting #3 for Indigenous and Northern Affairs in the 44th Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was calla.
A video is available from Parliament.
2 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Marc Garneau
Thank you, Mr. Calla.
Thank you, Mrs. Gill.
The next speaker, for two and a half minutes, is Ms. Idlout.
2 p.m.
NDP
Lori Idlout NDP Nunavut, NU
[Member spoke in Inuktitut, interpreted as follows:]
Thank you. I will pose a question to Mr. Calla.
I ask again: aboriginal people opposed the Trans Mountain pipeline. How did you reconcile with those who opposed it? How did you work it out?
2 p.m.
Executive Chair, First Nations Financial Management Board
Well, the financial management board did not, because that's not our role. Others reached out to try to engage with them, but it was not their role. It's not the financial management board's role to reach out to people on those matters. It's not our role.
As an individual, I may support a more pragmatic approach to how you get rid of fossil fuels. The reverse question can also be asked, because when we talk about reconciliation, it's a two-sided coin. How do we reconcile the economic benefits derived from these initiatives not going into first nations communities facing the consequences of these projects with there being no remedial action plans for them? I think first nations need to be involved in these conversations.
If, as a result of that engagement, these projects are denied, so be it. That's my view. But this one was not.
2:05 p.m.
NDP
Lori Idlout NDP Nunavut, NU
[Member spoke in Inuktitut, interpreted as follows:]
Thank you.
I will move to the next person, to Mr. Daniels.
I enjoy hearing about FNFA. I wonder, how does FNFA equitably review our community's growing capacity? I ask this question in the context of, for example, remote communities where people live in unaffordable conditions who may not be able to borrow enough to make a significant change to their living conditions.
2:05 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Marc Garneau
Mr. Daniels, the time has run out. Perhaps you could provide that answer in writing. We have to go to the next round.
At this point, it is Mr. Shields from the Conservative Party.
You have five minutes.
February 4th, 2022 / 2:05 p.m.
Conservative
Martin Shields Conservative Bow River, AB
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you to the witnesses for being here today. It's very much appreciated.
Mr. Calla, you mentioned attitudes, policies and legislation that need to be changed, but you also said you didn't want to wait. There's something of an oxymoron there when you're talking about being quick and you're talking about attitudes, policies and legislation.
I want to go to Manny about his comment that the last thing we need is another government program or an expansion of the bureaucracy, but then you got into innovations. Could you quickly discuss innovations and some examples of them and why?
I really believe you that this is the best way to go. Can you give us some examples^
2:05 p.m.
Clarence T. (Manny) Jules
The First Nations Fiscal Management Act gives you a clear idea of what I mean by innovation. What you have to be able to do is to create institutions that bring forward innovative ideas. Obviously a lot of the ideas that have been in practice for over a century haven't worked. What we have to be able to do is empower individuals, individual first nation communities, to be able to bring forward innovative ideas individually and collectively.
What we've been able to harness through the First Nations Fiscal Management Act is innovation that cuts across community barriers, and we've been able to break down economic barriers because we're working together. One of the biggest innovations is with regard to federal legislation, giving jurisdictional space, making sure that we have the ability to be able to create capacity, training and to pass on skills to individuals and communities, making sure that there are rules and regulations, which are critically important as we begin to move forward building more and more infrastructure and innovation as it comes to education.
Education is critically important to all of this and that's why I mentioned the whole STEEM approach. We need to rethink how we teach at the local level, but we also have to be able to inspire. That's one of the things that we are hoping will take place through the first nations infrastructure institute so that we will be able to harness individuals who may live in a remote area and who are thinking, let's try a different approach to solving this issue. We want one day to have somebody go up into the space station like our esteemed chair here, and that can only happen if we have a different way of teaching our students and inspiring them.
2:05 p.m.
Conservative
Martin Shields Conservative Bow River, AB
I absolutely agree with you. Education is critical.
I'll give you an example. In Calgary the new arena they were going to build was an innovative way for taxing in a region in downtown Calgary, or there's a small municipality saying we're going to sell our lots in here for a hundred bucks.
I agree with you on education. It's critical and I support it a hundred per cent, but do you have any examples of innovation where you can say, this is an example of why we don't need programs and bureaucracy. Here's an example of results that have happened because of innovation at the ground level?
2:10 p.m.
Clarence T. (Manny) Jules
I mentioned that the First Nations Fiscal Management Act was an innovation that grew out of a need among our communities here in Canada. We said that the only way to begin to break down the systemic root causes of our lack of economic development was to create our own institutions, so that we could bring forward our own jurisdictions in order to make decisions ourselves.
The limitations of that, of course, are other pieces of legislation. However, what that brings....One of the things we did in Kamloops was to use the tax jurisdiction to put in a major water supply facility that we had built using our own funds. Mind you, there were some contributions from Canada, but we were able to do that, because we had an innovative approach through legislation. There are many ways.
Through the development of the first nations infrastructure institute, why build one water facility when we can build 25? Why build, as Ernie said, one diesel-generating system, when we can replace that with more innovative approaches to deal with power in rural communities?
There are many ways to look at innovation, but the most important way is to let us have a free imagination and the jurisdiction and the resources to see that through.
2:10 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Marc Garneau
Thank you, Mr. Jules.
I'm going to go to the next person, but before that, I see, Mr. Calla, you have your hand up, and Mr. Daniels. I'm going to allow that.
Mr. Calla, please take the floor.
2:10 p.m.
Executive Chair, First Nations Financial Management Board
Thank you.
If you look at the examples of some of the clients who are in the First Nations FMA, you'll be able to see where they've taken this innovation and created economic development opportunities. Opaskwayak Cree Nation in Manitoba, Fisher River in Manitoba, the Mi'Kmaq bands in the Maritimes, all of these communities have taken the capacities and innovations of the fiscal management act and used their imagination to leverage revenues with the finance authority to engage in economic development.
We used to have something we called “bungee economics” for indigenous communities. It was money coming in, and then it would go right out. It would not turn. That's being changed in places like Fisher River, where all of a sudden now there's economic activity occurring within. That all happened because you had access to capital, you had access to tax revenues and you had an ability to understand, through a financial management system, the kinds of things that you were doing. Those are the kinds of innovations that I think this has created.
I hope that answers your question.
2:10 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Marc Garneau
Thank you, Mr. Calla.
Mr. Daniels, you raised your hand as well. Please be brief.
2:10 p.m.
President and Chief Executive Officer, First Nations Finance Authority
Thank you very much. I appreciate that.
Harold kind of touched on it. I was going to talk about the Clearwater deal. That was clearly innovative in terms of how that deal went through. It was a public company that ended up being a private company. It took some innovation and thinking with the act in place already.
There are limitations under this act, and one of them is that we can only deal with an Indian Act band. It doesn't allow us to deal with a collaboration that comes together. We have to deal with every first nation individually. However, we made it happen. We found a way where we could actually take first nations to collaborate on a single project that's going to generate the economic activity for that region and really have a positive spin on the economic local economy there.
Since then, first nations are coming to us in groups, looking at bigger types of projects. There's the proposed railroad, the Churchill railroad and the Churchill port. There are about 40 first nations working on that and they want to deal with that.
There are limitations of the act that we need to talk about at some point in time, because we need to move beyond the issue of a single eligible recipient of a finance loan that's in the Indian Act.
I wanted to add that, thank you.
2:15 p.m.
Clarence T. (Manny) Jules
Mr. Chair, if I could indulge here for one minute?
2:15 p.m.
Clarence T. (Manny) Jules
One of the innovations we're putting forward is the first nations infrastructure institute. That innovation came out of our need to not have the federal bureaucracy determining what kind of infrastructure should be put into our communities. This will allow us, for the first time, to build economic-ready and business-ready infrastructure in our communities. It's a huge innovation, and we came up with the idea ourselves.
2:15 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Marc Garneau
Thank you very much, Mr. Jules.
Those are all good inputs.
The next person is Mr. Weiler from the Liberal Party. You have five minutes.
2:15 p.m.
Liberal
Patrick Weiler Liberal West Vancouver—Sunshine Coast—Sea to Sky Country, BC
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I would also like to thank all of the witnesses for joining our committee today and for the fascinating testimony thus far.
The first question I have is for Mr. Calla.
One of the items you mentioned as part of the road map that you proposed for first nations is aggregation. The Squamish Nation has a lot of experience working with nearby nations, like the Musqueam, Tsleil-Waututh and the Líl̓wat.
What lessons and recommendations do you have for other nations, as well as for the federal government in particular on what we can put forward or support to move further in that direction?
2:15 p.m.
Liberal
2:15 p.m.
Executive Chair, First Nations Financial Management Board
I want to go back to what Ernie said, which is that the federal government has to recognize and permit aggregations. We have to move beyond the Indian Act mentality. This act is only there to support.
You raised the communities that participated in the 2010 Olympics. It was the recognition that we could get a benefit collectively that we couldn't get individually that made us come together. We'd been in court against one another prior to that. All of a sudden, that all changed, and it changed the whole mentality.
Part of that is finding a reason to want to do it and finding an economic benefit that causes people to want to do it. That's really important. It's the ability to come together. Look at the Clearwater transaction, as an example. Had they had an entity, why couldn't we have dealt with the entity? Why do we have to deal with the individual Indian bands?
We have to start recognizing that as the economies grow in first nation communities and become more expansive, this notion that everything is going to be done through the Indian band is not valid. It's going to be controlled by the Indian band and we need to be able to facilitate those kinds of investments that need to be made to support that economic development. However, people have to see that they can benefit. It has to be facilitated. The government needs to amend its policies and procedures to be able to do that.
I realize that everything takes time, but the policy decision, the memorandum to cabinet, has to come forward to enable a conversation to take place in these areas. That's what's important right now.
2:15 p.m.
Liberal
Patrick Weiler Liberal West Vancouver—Sunshine Coast—Sea to Sky Country, BC
Thank you.
To touch on something we talked about quite a bit, this question is for Mr. Daniels.
You mentioned that the $2 billion investment made in infrastructure could leverage $25 billion if we're using monetization. I was hoping you could explain how you came to that number, and whether you've had any concerns or push-back from some of your membership on this proposal.
2:15 p.m.
President and Chief Executive Officer, First Nations Finance Authority
There's been no push-back from our membership. They are directing us to do this and look at how we can build more infrastructure in our communities.
How do we propose to make $25 billion? I mentioned that it was a billion. Through the power of leveraging, we have access to the capital markets through our credit ratings. They're really respectable credit ratings. Mind you, it's historical. There is no other indigenous group in the entire world that borrows as a group and has garnered credit ratings like we have. It doesn't exist anywhere else. This whole act is purely innovative.
Mr. Berna, who is with me, has expertise in leveraging and working with the capital markets. We're going to be issuing our ninth bond since 2014 at the end of this month. That's pretty good. We are well known in the marketplace internationally. Our bonds are bought in Europe, in the Middle East and in the United States. We could go out there and access the money if had the revenue source to do it. In a government, a revenue source is gold. It's golden. It gives you the highest leverage that you can get. We can leverage up to 15 times what the annual amount is.
I don't know if we have any more time for Steve to add to that.