Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  Thank you for the opportunity to present to you today. I thought I would give you a brief background on First Nations Bank, where we operate, and what we do. We do a lot of business in the north. In fact, it's one of the biggest regions we do business in and the fastest growing

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  I can go first. I think education is the number one priority. If we look at the customers we have who are successful, it's because they're being driven by people from the region who live there, understand the needs and wants of the communities they work for, and are capable of d

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  Well, you're right. They have a significant advantage because of the opportunities they've taken with the development of hydro in the settlements in their region. Often we take people from the south who have never been to first nations--they've heard all the details about poor fi

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  This is a directive we give to most first nations clients. We look for clients who portray the characteristics of effective government. It's not really that surprising. It's about stable institutions and policies of government so that a business like ours knows what the rules a

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  It can first of all assist local northern governments, whether they be aboriginal or territorial governments, in creating that kind of environment. Frankly, I think the federal government can also take a look at that approach when it comes to economic development. Besides puttin

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  Thank you. Good morning. It's a pleasure to appear before your committee today. As the leader of an aboriginal-owned chartered bank that primarily focuses on Inuit, Métis, and first nations customers across the country, I have significant experience on the topic being discusse

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  As I mentioned, I think you really have to consider the continuum. You have two points on a continuum of aboriginal economic development here today. NACCA and its members are developmental lenders. They deal with start-ups. They deal with providing not commercial bankable loans b

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  Briefly, some level of developmental lending is always tough and it's difficult for the private sector. For the same reason that the Atlantic Development Corporation and Western Economic Diversification Canada are government programs, that's effectively what the aboriginal develo

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  They're very involved. We deal with many first nations all across Canada. About 90% of our loan portfolio is to aboriginal groups and first nations individuals, and we compete regularly with all the big banks whenever we go to an opportunity. They're all there and they're being

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  The AFIs are represented by NACCA and are developmental lenders. As Francine said—and she can speak to it better than I—these are for smaller, developmental loans. Commercial loans are typically what you'd see from existing chartered banks. They need to be on commercial terms a

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  There are a lot of issues. The Indian Act and the collateral issues there are part of the challenge. Banks like ours and other banks figure out ways to deal with that. Instead of looking at physical security of an asset on reserve, we look for cashflow security. We're really ca

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  The largest barrier under the Indian Act is the inability of a financial institution like ours to take security of a physical asset on reserve. Typically, if we were doing a vehicle loan for a grader in a northern non-aboriginal community, for example, we could take a chattel mor

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  It's one to one.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  No.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  That moves up the continuum.