Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  I am from Thunder Bay. I'm actually on the board of directors of Noront, which has many of the assets in the Ring of Fire. My immediate reaction is to give the communities the opportunity to manage. Communities are going to stumble and they're going to stub their toes, but they'

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  No, I'm not hearing a phone. Anyway, I'll end it there in saying that communities have to be empowered to make their own decisions. I think we shouldn't be making them. Those communities need to decide what's best for them.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  I'll address one part of that. With regard to the environmental protection, we're often seen as the stewards of mother earth. What I think is an opportunity for this country at all levels—private sector, federal government, etc.—is to empower people by having seats at the table.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  Thank you very much. The other thing is that we can't ignore the power and influence of the private sector. When we talk about supply chains, etc., Canada could be looking at rewarding those good actors that are working with our indigenous businesses and communities. CCAB has th

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  If you go to the CCAB website, there are numerous indigenous suppliers that can produce this, and a lot of them have shifted to producing PPE. This is just a little shout-out, because there are a lot of capable indigenous businesses that can help with the PPE as well as distribut

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  That's a great question, and thank you. Let me give one example of a first nation, Henvey Inlet. They went out to the market and raised $900 million in senior debt to be a 51% equity stakeholder in a 300-megawatt wind farm project. What's extraordinary about this project is that

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  That is a great question, because a lot of our indigenous communities rely on the natural resource sector for employment and for significant revenues for their businesses. The impact would be significant. We recognize that there is an energy transition that needs to happen in t

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  The borrowing power of communities...? Actually, I would love to hear from Harold and Manny on that one as well. Credit rating is really important, but the challenge in many of our communities, as my colleagues know really well, is that the Indian Act hampers our ability to deve

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  That's a great question and I think my colleagues would agree that there is a lot of untapped potential with indigenous communities, both from a business perspective as well as in the employment force. We all know that the infrastructure deficit is well over $30 billion in our i

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  Thank you so much. Bonjour, everybody. Thank you to the chair and all the distinguished committee members for inviting me to address you today. It's not in my script, but a big hello to my friends Manny and Harold. It's great to see you. I'm speaking to you from the traditi