Thank you, Chair and committee, for the opportunity to speak today.
My name is Stephen Buffalo. I'm the president and CEO of the Indian Resource Council in Canada. Our organization represents first nations who have produced or have direct interests in the oil and gas sector.
Our mandate is to advocate for federal policies that will improve and increase resource development opportunities for first nations and their members. Although we've focused on oil and gas, many of our members have engaged in solar and wind projects and transmission lines. They're looking at carbon capture and are starting to look at equity opportunities in nuclear with small nuclear reactors.
I'm sure members of the committee know that first nations have been historically excluded from economic opportunities in this country. We have little say on the activities taking place on our lands, even as they diminish our aboriginal treaty rights. We have worked hard to defend our rights over the past decades and, as a result, things are getting better.
We still face a number of challenges in growing our economies. The IRA has exacerbated these.
The first is Canadian competitiveness. Investors can move their capital, but we can't move our territories. We're seeing investment flee south to the United States because they have a more friendly business environment. Many of our members are involved in deals that are stuck in purgatory because there's no certainty around investment tax credits, environmental regulations, labour requirements and so on. It seems that every month some new government plan or policy comes through that puts us all on the back foot. Our members need more consistency in order to attract investors and to build projects.
The second is the support for first nations to become partners in energy projects. The IRA includes more than $720 million in tribal-specific programs or set-asides for tribes within other programs. The tribes are also eligible to apply for billions of dollars from other funding programs. I'm honestly still learning a lot about these things.
One of the biggest incentives is the refundable tax credits. As non-taxable entities, tribes generally have not been able to take advantage of tax credits designed to incentivize green energy deployment and neither will our members. To solve this, the IRA allows tribes to receive direct payments in lieu of tax credits, and they can stack regular tribal credits and so on in other projects on our tribal lands. Tribes can receive tax credits of up to 70% of the project costs. This is supercharging not only for energy transition in the United States but for indigenous economic development as well. We would love to see these programs replicated in Canada.
The other thing in addition to tax credits is that the IRA has established a tribal energy loan guarantee program. It's a fund of $20 billion. It started as a Canadian idea. We have it in Ontario, Alberta and Saskatchewan.
I know of the government's establishment of a national indigenous loan guarantee program. As the chair of the Alberta Indigenous Opportunities Corporation, I strongly support this. It will unlock so much opportunity for our members and make us partners in the Canadian economy, but I've also heard concerns that it excludes fossil fuels. I want to take this opportunity to strongly request that you do not—I repeat: “you do not”—take opportunities for our nations off the table. Even as we engage enthusiastically in clean energy investments, we depend on revenues from oil and gas. The Indian Act funding is not enough: Our leaders do not need to manage poverty.
We need, finally, to get a piece of the pie from the projects that are happening in our territories, extracting our own resources. Many companies are lining up to partner with us, but we need to bring equity to the table. Both the Alberta and the American loan programs explicitly allow fossil fuel projects. It would be a real slap in the face if the Canadian program denied these opportunities to us.
Thank you. I look forward to answering any questions.
Hay hay kinana’skomitin.