I was speaking about a first nation that has been evacuated for over 10 years, and their kids are being raised in hotels.
Just today, we had a community meeting that was held to try to update them on the process of converting that land. The region gave them funding already. There's been funding set aside for the infrastructure, and then it's the region that's holding up the paperwork. They are such minor things.
For example, a first nation was waiting 20 years to convert some parcels of land. When we came into the picture, we were told it was just a typo on a piece of paper that was holding up that ATR. It's crazy that this type of bureaucracy is what's preventing these communities from developing. This particular leadership, having had the entire community evacuated, when they were trying to go back home, wasn't even allowed to select the land. Instead, it was the province that said, “No, we're going to put you over here.”
Now they're going back to an area that's not their original reserve. The province on the one hand has dictated to them, and ISC on the other hand is saying, “If you don't sign this comprehensive agreement, we're going to stall it,” and that's what's happening.
How can the region on one hand give this first nation several hundreds of thousands of dollars to go and develop, and then the ATR unit on the other hand say, “No, you have to do A to Z first”? It just doesn't make any sense, and here we are.
We took them to meet with the municipality, and we did their applications. We even worked with the municipality and tried to make sure the right parcels were being discussed. Then the bureaucrats came back to us and said, “Oh, you forgot this.”
We had been going at this for a year already. How many times have they gone through this process, and they're only telling us now, a year later, that maybe we needed an additional letter? It's so ineffective. If they would just say, “Here. Go do it,” then we would get the paperwork back to Ottawa, and whoever needs to sign it could sign it.
It's stalled in that region. I don't know why. Manitoba is.... It's a frustrating process, having to deal with that region.