Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  Good afternoon. My name is Manny Jules. I am the chief commissioner of the First Nations Tax Commission. Thank you for the invitation to appear before this committee to address your study on barriers to indigenous economic development. The city of Ottawa has just witnessed a p

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  Let's work together.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  Part of my presentation this morning was leading in that direction. What I was saying by “let's work together” is that we have laid out a very ambitious legislative agenda. One of the things we want to see passed in federal legislation is a first nations infrastructure institute.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  The highlight for me was a tax-sharing agreement in New Brunswick, but which Premier Higgs ended last year. I'm sure Ms. Atwin is familiar with that. That had generated some millions of dollars for individual communities on a tax-sharing arrangement. It allowed those communities

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  The First Nations Fiscal Management Act gives you a clear idea of what I mean by innovation. What you have to be able to do is to create institutions that bring forward innovative ideas. Obviously a lot of the ideas that have been in practice for over a century haven't worked. Wh

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  I mentioned that the First Nations Fiscal Management Act was an innovation that grew out of a need among our communities here in Canada. We said that the only way to begin to break down the systemic root causes of our lack of economic development was to create our own institution

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  Mr. Chair, if I could indulge here for one minute?

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  One of the innovations we're putting forward is the first nations infrastructure institute. That innovation came out of our need to not have the federal bureaucracy determining what kind of infrastructure should be put into our communities. This will allow us, for the first time,

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  Well, it's relatively simple: We need to empower first nations to look after themselves. In order to do that, we need certainty of jurisdiction and certainty of income. For me, being a tax promoter, it's taksis so that we would have independent revenues to be able to look after t

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  I would say the biggest limitation is the lack of legislation. That's why we're promoting the first nations infrastructure institute. You can't get beyond piloting a monetization program without having the legislation in place. That's why we need the legislation ASAP.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  It's a multipronged question. The message is very clear: The more tax jurisdiction we have, the less liability and therefore oversight from any other government. We need tax jurisdiction just like every other government. I think a lot of these issues like tobacco, cannabis, fue

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  What we've done here in Kamloops is we occupy what we call the “fat tax”—fuel, alcohol and tobacco. That is paid by individual community members, but also the broader society as well. We generate over a million dollars a year as a result of that revenue. We're able to use that to

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  When we talk about projects on reserve taking four to six times longer, it's because there's a lack of resources on the part of the community. There's lack of capacity to deal with the issues, a lack of rules and regulations and a lack of a game plan in terms of what needs to be

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  We need optional legislation. We're past the day...and this goes to the questions that have been asked of Harold. One of the things about philosophy is that people need to be able to be educated and make educated decisions. That's what we propose. We want people to come in with

Finance committee  Good afternoon. I am Manny Jules, the chief commissioner of the First Nations Tax Commission. Thank you for this opportunity to appear before this committee. This is the 22nd submission I've made. I have personally made 15 pre-budget submissions to this committee. In December