Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  I think that housing can play a major role in economic reconciliation, but it has to become more than a program. It has to become a business activity. If you're going to own a home, you generally have to care for it and pay for it, and that's difficult to do if you don't have an economy in your community.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  It's very much so. If program funding was going to work, it would have worked by now.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  It's Harold. If I may, I will start. I look at the legislation as a living piece of legislation. It's always going to be amended to reflect the current circumstances of the day. We've been working on these particular amendments for quite some time. Did we get everything we wanted?

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  Thank you for the opportunity to be here today. As you said, my name is Harold Calla. I'm the executive chair of the First Nations Financial Management Board and a member of the Squamish nation. For those who don't know, I've been the executive chair of the First Nations Financial Management Board since its inception some 15 years ago.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  I don't disagree with a sectoral approach, but I think we need to recognize that this council is going to have to establish a number of its own committees to engage more broadly across the country. I know that I keep reiterating and repeating myself, but this needs to be funded.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  I think you have to have elders' representation. I recall being in one of my community's meetings where we were asking our elders for some advice, and they turned to us and said, “That's why you're up there”, so we have to be careful what we put upon them. That's my only caution.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  I think you have to invest in indigenous-led solutions. Government-led solutions haven't proven to be successful. If you were to look at the results of the First Nations Fiscal Management Act, at the 300 communities and the work that the financial management board has done even in communities that are in financial trouble, what you see is that bringing governance and administrative and fiscal capacity to those first nations has increased their own-source revenue and their index of well-being.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  Wow. I think the scope of what this council is able to do can't be limited. That's the first thing. It needs to go where the truth needs to be found. I think that the economic reality of the international community being unhappy with how our global economy has conducted itself over the last years has created a movement called ESG—environmental standards and governance.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  I believe it can protect our rights. The council will have that opportunity. If it has government-wide access to information and data, it can bring that forward in ways we've not been able to do before, so I think it can help. It doesn't mean that the issues we have today don't require alternative measures to deal with those kinds of things, but, as I have said several times when I've come here before, whatever you do, you have to have a picture in your mind of what you want to see 20 years from now.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  Thank you for the question. There's no guarantee. My hope is that its report to parliamentarians will be what identifies the need for change and will trigger the incentive for change. If indigenous people could do it themselves, it would have been done a long time ago. We need to have the ability to report directly to Parliament, which I believe this provides, around the issues that are required to achieve reconciliation.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  Gender equality has become the norm in all boards, and it should be pursued.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  I do. It's one of the reasons I referenced the “RoadMap” project that we're working on. The 300 first nations across the country that have begun to work with us are looking for these kinds of opportunities. The challenge we all face is that we can't move in lockstep. We're all evolving at different levels and at different speeds.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  There's no single solution here. We need legislation. We need institutions. We need a structure. We need to build the capacity of first nation communities. We need to create an economic development opportunity for indigenous communities because, in my view, it's the poverty that is the root cause of many of the challenges we face.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  Yes, it does need to be, but it also involves the provinces. With respect, I think there should be a first ministers conference called to deal with some of the issues that were unresolved when the Constitution was created. If we're going to have reconciliation in this country, it's going to involve multiple levels of government, but the provincial government has a key role to play.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  No, there isn't, but we haven't had a platform whereby we can contribute to a report that goes to Parliament to deal with these issues before. That will come from this legislation. I think that's important. That was part of the reason I accepted the invitation to come here. To me, reconciliation talks about section 35.