Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  I've worked with the whole range of communities ranging from Squamish that has multi-billion dollar potential in terms of development. I worked initially with Westbank on the implementation of taxation and a number of communities right across the country. Some of them start out r

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  To be quite honest, we're going to learn an awful lot from the experience of FNLMA, from the communities that are going through that process and where they're going to be headed. There's a couple of communities involved in this process that are part of FNLMA. What we're going to

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  But they do reside in the homes.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  Some of them are starting to move into what's called FNLMA. I haven't personally approached communities in northern Ontario to be part of or a proponent of this particular initiative.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  Yes.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  There's one community. Another community is nearing a settlement and wants to set up lands under FNPO.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  It's a mix. There are residential developments, some railway rights-of-way with CPR, industrial developments, and commercial developments. Those are the taxable interests that first nations go after, and because of that they're able to lever that to have interests that they can—

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  That's right.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  That's right. Remember that leased lands are one-tenth of the value of fee simple lands. So obviously that's going to increase.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  Sure. I'll give you a little bit of a history lesson. My dad started to deal with the tax issue in 1965. It was to snowplow some of the lands on our Mt. Paul industrial park, which you created in 1961. You went to the provincial government. The province said, “Well, you're an I

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  Well, it's one of the major factors in the underdevelopment of our lands. When you compare the lands in most of the proponent communities and the neighbouring jurisdiction, it's night and day. In Kamloops, they used to call the reserve the dark side. It's because we didn't have a

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  I think it would be much the same way as they do it in your community now. When I visited Sept-Îles there were two different communities. When I toured, there were individual property lots on which individuals had built homes. It wouldn't be any different from that. In order to

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  They've chosen to have a deed system under the Indian Act.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  They've chosen to have a deeds land registry system under the Indian Lands Registry. So right now under the Indian Lands Registry, there's a registry for Indian reserves, for designated lands, and for FNLMA lands—and that's deeds. So as I pointed out, eventually you're going to

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  A reversionary right.