Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  Thank you. [Witness speaks in Algonquin] I'm from Kitigan Zibi. It's nice to be in the territory to present to you. My name is Francine Whiteduck. I am the CEO of the National Aboriginal Capital Corporations Association. Attending with me today is Kevin Schindelka, our directo

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  We have made a lot of movement. We worked with Deloitte this year to do an independent study of the liquidity and the needs of the AFIs in the network, and to look at how we could structure this capital-attraction tool. We've come up with some notional ideas, and there were some

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  One thing we saw there was that there was an assumption that there was a lot of liquidity in the system, and the interviews with the AFIs have proven that it's not nearly as high as everybody was touting before. It's actually quite small. That was one of the underlying assumption

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  With respect to financial literacy, I mentioned that the AFIs have played a role. As we look at their development over time, we can see that AFIs were greatly involved in our communities in the education process regarding financial literacy. When they started in the early 1980s,

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  Certainly, there is a continuum of lenders out there. Keith spoke of it in terms of the AFIs. It's developmental loan, so it's high risk. We're dealing with entrepreneurs who are learning. They've had little or low experience in running a business. They don't have credit. Also, t

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  The reason I talk about a dedicated fund is that right now the capital is all thrown in there and there's nothing dedicated. It's discretionary. Because a lot of the funding we get is from Aboriginal Affairs, it's discretionary. If somebody needs to build an infrastructure proj

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  First of all, way back in the early eighties, they did start tracking how many loans were going to aboriginal women and to youth and taking a look at how we were having an impact. Along with the Canadian trend itself, aboriginal women are following that, although they're behind i

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  Yes, we have the aboriginal capacity development program, ACD—there are a lot of acronyms in this world—that is available with training in and for the AFIs where they require supports. Some of the AFIs have some mentorship programs that provide the care that is needed for the abo

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  Yes, certainly. There is a lot that the federal government can do and that it has contributed to in the past. I mentioned the equity issue: it's just not there in the community. They don't have the assets that you would find in the non-aboriginal community for people wanting to

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  No.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  Do you want to take this, Kevin? Kevin has been around since day one, so....

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  Yes.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  As I mentioned earlier in my presentation, it has become quite limited and has been reduced over the last 20 years in a very significant way.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  Well, way back when we started, the funds that were available.... It included a little bit of both, but we were talking about $50 million to $75 million being available to entrepreneurs, which they could access—

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  It's $24 million.