Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  Mr. Chair, thank you for the invitation to appear today. I am Tim Johnston, manager of North Central Community Futures Development Corporation Inc. I am joined today by our chairperson, Frances McIvor, an entrepreneur from Wabowden, Manitoba, and a member of the Peguis First Nati

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  Mr. Chair, I appreciate the question. The Mystery Lake property is an example of aboriginal business development programming working, in that the acquisition of the property by NCN was done with the assistance of Aboriginal Business Canada financing, in addition to the expansion

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  In response to the question, there are two points. When we look at our own loan fund, which was capitalized at a million dollars, we lend approximately $600,000 a year. Our terms are one to five years. The math says we can't do it. Our fund would require an amount of $2.5 million

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  I think what we've seen, as I noted, is a transition over time. Quite frankly, northern Manitoba is active in terms of development. There are major hydro developments taking place. As I noted, all five of the first nations that are signatories of the Manitoba Hydro development ar

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  Mr. Chair, we're one of the fortunate ones. I say that, in all honesty, partially because of our geographic location and the unique economic opportunities in the region. So we have the ability too...and we've been fortunate that many of the projects that we've lent to are success

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  Correct. The original capitalization of $1 million appears on our financial statements as an amount owed to the federal government. So it is a repayable contribution. Any additional funds—revenue, profit—made from lending activities, after loan loss, accrues to the fund and is us

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  Right. In response, you have to take a look at the type of AFI it is. Aboriginal capital corporations largely do not receive any offsetting administrative dollars. So their challenge is that they have to return a higher rate of return to offset some of that admin. For a community

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  I think it's the strategy we've adopted because our fund is so small. We can't afford to take high-risk loans, which again is an issue of access to capital. Our small loan fund necessitates that we be very strategic in our lending, which means some people who probably need dollar

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  Yes, and the difference is that aboriginal capital corporations were capitalized at a much higher level than the CFs. So, we were capitalized at $1 million. Many ACCs would have been capitalized in the range of $3 million to $7 million. It's a fundamental difference.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  I think if the loan fund were a reasonable amount of money, we could. Again, I think that in the discussion of access to capital, if we're going to do that, we and the program would have to be very strategic about what its objectives were and where it's going to place that money.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  Mr. Chair, good question. North Central delivers the Community Futures program. We were under contract to serve as an external delivery office, in addition to providing the Community Futures programming. The major contributions were done as an XDO. We hired a separate person to

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  We can do that. You haven't seen a lot of that in Manitoba. As a Community Futures, we have drawn the most from the Manitoba-pooled funds. One of the challenges obviously in western Canada is the amount of money held by many Community Futures. As I've said, we've borrowed four ti

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  I appreciate the question. I would be hesitant to answer on behalf of other AFIs, but I....

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  We would deplete the fund. That's exactly what would happen. With a small fund like ours obviously it would just be a matter of time. Again, I think if we look at it historically that has been exactly the challenge.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  I can only speak to North Central. Our board was very clear that because of our small loan fund, we had to be very cautious in our lending practices. Our objective was to build the fund. We've been successful at that. At a 6.9% loan loss rate, we're sustainable in the loan fund.