Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  Okay, thank you. I don't mind being under pressure. I'm going to skim through my presentation because I want to get to the recommendations as well. I think it's important. We're pretty new on the block. We actually originated from the First Nations Fiscal Management Act, so I t

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  You have our presentation; we've sent it. There's two recommendations in there. I don't know if you want to hear them before you run over.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  Good morning. I want to thank you for this opportunity. I was actually here last year and I didn't quite finish. I started my presentation and you guys had to go and vote on a bill. I hope that this time I'll get through it. Thank you once again for this opportunity, I really

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  I believe that this act is really important. I see the importance as being in long-term planning, as communities are building themselves to pursue whatever activities they see as important to them and as a priority, and on their own time. Essentially, they're in control of it. Th

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  One of the barriers I see is the capacity issue both on our side and on the first nation side. There's really an education process to understanding how the act can actually help them achieve their goals to access financing for economic development, investing in two different proj

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  Yes, that's exactly the point. You nailed it right on the head.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  The scheduling was one of the biggest issues I encountered when I was talking to first nations. The current process can be fairly lengthy. It's a Governor in Council process, and it can take up to six months. In the Membertou example I mentioned, they had actually completed all t

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  One of the things I mentioned was the monetization of capital dollars. If $150 million, as an example, were monetized on an annual basis for 10 years, just over $1 billion could be leveraged at today's dollars. When you do the math, it's.... I don't know what the average cost of

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  Yes, we could. The other suggestion—

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  Yes. The other one is the Indian moneys. There is lots of money sitting there that could be leveraged. There's about $250,000 annually that's generated. You can actually leverage it by 12 or 13 times.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  We worked in concert with the banking syndicate and the investment community to develop different leverage factors for each type of eligible revenue stream that's allowed under the regulation. We assess a first nation. We review their financial statements, look at the eligible re

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  There is no collateral. We secure ties to revenue stream.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  We don't do risk lending.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  There are government transfers, business revenue, contracts, leases, municipal transfers.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  Yes, it just has to be legal.