Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  My mom wishes I did.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  Our study was done in 1998, and it was to do with the development of a Sobeys, which was the main tenant of a shopping mall, and the development associated with that. As you know, that particular community borders the municipality of Sept-Îles quite closely. It provided an opportunity to evaluate how long it would take to build a similar development like that in Sept-Îles versus the first nation community, Uashat.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  There was a recent book.... And as an economist who's not named Steven Levitt—who wrote Freakonomics—it's always good when an economist becomes famous. A couple of economists have become famous by writing a book called Why Nations Fail. They've analyzed nations all throughout the world, and they've come to one conclusion.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  I'll do it hopefully quite simply. Under the FNFSMA, a first nation could achieve a credit rating. Under section 83 of the Indian Act, they couldn't. Now, ask yourself why. The answer is quite simple. The Indian Act doesn't provide anywhere near the regulatory certainty that's required for anyone to give them a credit rating, whereas the FNFSMA has all those aspects in there.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  Is it okay if I go first, Chris and John?

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  I'll follow up on what Chris said. First nations don't have anywhere near the same financing tools as local governments. Local governments generally finance infrastructure through fixed sources. They have property taxes. They have money in reserve. They use development cost charges or something akin to development cost charges.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  Of course, I stand behind some of the best practices that we recommended, but as a committee, you also have to consider the following with respect to making the ATR process more like the MBE, to take some of the best practices out of the municipal boundary expansion situation. Of course, what makes the municipal boundary expansion situation simpler is that you're not changing jurisdiction.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  In almost all of the cases it did involve some infrastructure, but a lot of the biggest cost was creating the property right certainty. Creating the certainty for investment was principally one of the major differences in cost, and it's because of that legal framework that's by and large missing on first nations.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  When we did the study, we actually looked at projects that were successful. We looked at developing a project, and the four areas we looked at were Sept-Îles, Siksika, which is outside of—I'm trying to remember the town in Alberta—Squamish, and Kamloops. We looked at four successful first nation developments, and we looked at four successful developments in adjacent communities.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  Quite often it's opportunity. If there are economic opportunities and these regimes will help them realize those economic opportunities, the probability of their joining is much higher. Sometimes there's an interest in the first nations to want to assert their jurisdiction, and they see these as an opportunity to assert their jurisdiction and to move beyond the Indian Act.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  The outcomes depend upon your ability to create a climate for investment, if your principal advantage is location. It depends upon what your comparative advantage is. If you're trying to develop your economy through resource development, then there's a different answer to that question.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  I think that question is directed at me.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  The First Nations Land Management Act, the First Nations Fiscal and Statistical Management Act, and the First Nations Commercial and Industrial Development Act were all directed at that particular finding, that the costs of doing business on first nation lands are too high. The reason they're too high is that the legal, the administrative, and the infrastructure framework that exists off first nation lands isn't present.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  In the brief we provided you, we went through all the aspects of the first nation governance that would be required. We divided it up into three processes. It was based on our research that looked at the beginning of an investment to the end of an investment process. We divided it up into that which creates greater security over property rights, those which create greater certainty with respect to local services and the cost of those local services, and those which provide better access to capital.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  I'm going to give you a different answer. I hope it will eventually get to the answer. I think the answer is that it's always better to have some access to credit than to have none. I want to step back for a second. There are three actors in every single economy. There are governments, businesses, and households.