I'm very happy to, Mr. Vidal.
They secured that land 20-plus years ago through treaty land entitlement. Because the city and, at the time, the RM were quite frightened that a first nation was buying land around Saskatoon, everyone was paralyzed and they didn't want to help the community. It had such potential. We've seen such great examples across the country, with Tsuut'ina in Calgary, Enoch in Edmonton, and Tseil-Waututh, Musqueam and Squamish in Vancouver. English River had a very strong asset there, but without any services it was never going to go anywhere.
When I came in, what we had to do was.... How could we unlock the value of this land's potential? The current government had a very strong policy towards supporting waste-water infrastructure on first nation reserves, so we were happy to access funding through that stream to get this going.
What we found out, though, was that with our sovereign rights on our lands, first nations could, by building this type of infrastructure, add value to other stakeholders within the region. Saskatoon is quite motivated to build on the lands they own in the north end of the city, and we're not interested in investing in infrastructure on the south side of Saskatoon. The RM of Corman Park was and the landowners of southern Saskatoon were, so you saw a first nation coming in and solving a problem for a region.
This will create own-source revenue for English River. It will create urban employment for urban members. Like many northern first nations, we're seeing a lot of migration to the urban centres for education, so this offers a chance to develop these lands and to put in gathering places for our Dene members in Saskatoon, which is primarily a Plains Cree community.
As to own-source revenue, I mentioned pragmatism. I think the government should understand that there's so much money within indigenous economic reconciliation right now that I could travel the country and go to conferences. However, what's it really doing to the grassroots? Our leadership is always very pragmatic: You need own-source revenue to control your self-determination. We've seen this in the Northwest Territories and we've seen this in northern Alberta, northern B.C. and northern Saskatchewan. This will just spur further own-source revenue so they can then journey on their own path to self-determination, unfettered by operational financing from Indigenous Services.