Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  That's an excellent question. I would say there's more and more interest on the part of first nations and their neighbouring municipalities to do joint projects, certainly more than you would have heard ten years ago. In some cases the common sense, cost-efficient thing to do is to build a facility off reserve and throw a line or connection out to the reserve community.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  You’re getting into program specifics. I think I’d better reflect upon this further and give you my answer in writing. Generally speaking, we try to avoid situations where a community becomes indebted to that extent. We create incentives to allow it to move beyond the trusteeship arrangement as quickly as possible.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  Yes, the department does have a process in place in response to the Powley decision. This is precisely one of the responsibilities of the Federal Interlocutor. Plans and agreements have been worked out with Métis organizations to create member registries. However, the process has raised some legal issues of a constitutional nature.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  You'd have to ask. I mean, I don't know how you would come up with that number. Everybody would like to have more money. You could pick almost any number for it. We've done evaluations of it and I think people who run first nations governments have a pretty good sense of what they think the basic costs are.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  I can provide detail on that. Essentially what happens is we have a capital planning process. We have many needs in many communities, as Ms. Crowder pointed out. We do schools, water, waste water, electrification, roads, and so on--everything inside the boundaries of reserves.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  On the ones that were identified--we were a little on the conservative side--we're confident that those 10 schools and 18 water projects can be done. There is a risk that when they actually go out for tender, either the bids that will come in will be outrageously expensive or there will be nobody around to do the work.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  Certainly, Mr. Russell. It's actually a set of five programs that provide basic support for first nations governments and different facets of their basic operations as a government. It's an old program; it's been around for as long as there have been first nations governments in the sort of modern sense of the word.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  The lawyers' definition of “consultation”, in the context of section 35 rights, is a pretty narrow one. I'm not going to debate that; I'm not a lawyer. You can ask the department. So there are obligations to consult aboriginal people on issues that may affect their aboriginal and treaty rights.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  The lists come from the communities out of their own planning processes and what they think they need. We're dealing in this budget with the so-called shovel-ready projects, which are pretty well advanced. That means the community wants them, they've done feasibility studies, the design and engineering work is pretty advanced, and they know they have to build that into their future costs.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  Sure. Thank you, Mr. Duncan. On the Indian oil and gas bill, I guess it will be before you shortly if the House refers it to you. In broad-brush, this is a regulatory bill. It deals with how oil and gas activity—drilling, exploration, production and so on—would be regulated when it's on Indian lands.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  Yes, the field people. We do about half of housing and CMHC does the other half at this point.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  Thanks, Ms. Crowder. We've discussed this before. The first nations infrastructure fund is a new tool that we have. It was created in 2007 around the time the government made its arrangements to return gas tax money and GST money to the municipalities. We were able to get this new pooling of resources in the first nations infrastructure fund.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  You'd have to ask me about a specific project. Also, Health Canada would be the people doing nursing stations and those kinds of health-related facilities. One of the things we try to do is make sure that our programs, Health Canada's, and CMHC's housing, land, and the community are coherent, and that's a change.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  I'll have to get back to you on the very specific thing. To answer the question you're probably going to ask next, we do on-reserve and inside self-governing communities. We don't do off reserve. That sometimes comes up as an issue where there's an aboriginal institution, but it's not on a reserve or self-governing first nation.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  Thank you, Mr. Lévesque. Let me clarify one thing. As far as Nunavik is concerned, northern initiatives such as the Northern Development Agency and the Northern Housing Initiative target all three territories. We are working closely with government agencies like HRDC, the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation and the Quebec Department of Economic Development to ensure that there are no oversights where Northern Quebec is concerned.