Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  Of course, whether you're native or non-native, we all want our kids to go off to college or university. That's a motherhood statement. In my experience in Osoyoos, it wasn't until we started a construction company. We never had one journeyman carpenter before 1986. Then, once w

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  I'll start with the formula, because that's the thing that upsets me the most. Any reasonable person should see that the formula doesn't work. Forget talking about changing the Indian Act; why can't you just change that formula? The government controls the formula. In any case

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  You have to face the reality, and of course there are certain percentages of the reserves across this country that have a huge isolation factor and, because of that isolation factor, huge barriers to ever getting into economic development at the level of, say, some of the souther

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  Every province wants more money. The teachers want more money. Doctors and nurses in this country want more money. First nations are somewhere low on that totem pole. The reality is that we're never going to get enough money to properly run our programs and services. We have to

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  That would be great. That would be awesome. Any time you can add something that's going to speed things up to the speed of business.... Often there is a window of opportunity. When it comes to people wanting to do business, wanting to lease your land or be partners with a first

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  I don't go to AFN meetings. I'd rather hang around business people. At the assembly, the AFN, you're not going to get consensus around the table on how to deal with even one section of the Indian Act. That, to me, is decades in the making. I tell the department that we should ju

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  My answer to that is that you have to realize that in every province, there are a handful of first nations that are doing good economic development. They concentrate on it. They do it. My answer to that would be that we're not going to get rid of the Indian Act right away. I to

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  This is the final point I want to make before we get to questions.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  This is how stupid it is in the department: it is not only the formula that is whacked out. Certainly it shouldn't be 98% social spending, because that will never improve the quality of life of first nations people in this country, and that formula is wrong, but the other part th

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  Let me just wind up with some recommendations.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  We have been giving recommendations to government for years; in fact, we just met with Indian Affairs this morning. On the First Nations Land Management Act, you heard from Robert Louie a few weeks ago. We support that program. There is a backlog of first nations lined up to ge

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  Just to understand the process here, do we have until five o'clock?

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  Thank you, Mr. Chair. Can I have Dawn speak to the benchmarking report?

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  Thank you.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  I want to thank you for having us here. We look forward to the discussion and questions after my opening comments. My name is Clarence Louie. I am chief of the Osoyoos Indian Band in southern Okanagan, British Columbia. Some of you have been to our resort. I thank you for coming