Finance committee  No, we haven't talked to anybody who is working in those areas. Usually it's because they don't know we exist. As we get more known, we're sure this is going to happen. We're talking with a lot of different governments across the country and looking at other things. We're looking

Finance committee  We lend only on existing revenues, not future revenues.

Finance committee  The first nations that come to our door to borrow have gone through a pretty rigorous process. Most of the first nations are pretty well organized, from a governance perspective as well as economically. They have their projects already in mind in terms of what they want to do. Ou

Finance committee  It's a very good question. Just the nature of being on a reserve is a real impediment. You can't put up land or other assets as collateral. It's very, very difficult. I'm sure the credit union people would agree. That's the number one thing. The other thing, I think, is the lac

Finance committee  One of the other things that the regime, the act, is doing is...we're looking at trying to get first nations involvement in large resource projects across the country, so pipelines, whatever. That's currently being looked at right now, so there's a lot of work. First nations are

Finance committee  It's really interesting. Canada is so big and all the different economic activities from the different regions are different but very similar. A lot of first nations are really catching up. Infrastructure is a big thing. I think, number one, infrastructure for roads, for schools,

Finance committee  Thank you very much. I just want to say, “Go, Blue Jays, go!” It's going to help our economy. Thank you, committee members. My name is Ernie Daniels. I have Steve Berna here with me. I'm the president and CEO and Steve is the COO. We're with the First Nations Finance Authority,

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  There are government transfers, business revenue, contracts, leases, municipal transfers.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  Yes, it just has to be legal.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  When I first started, they told me, “Just make sure it's legal.” One of the revenue streams that's not allowed is the GST revenue. Some first nations actually have arrangements with provinces and Canada about the GST. That's not an eligible revenue stream.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  We worked in concert with the banking syndicate and the investment community to develop different leverage factors for each type of eligible revenue stream that's allowed under the regulation. We assess a first nation. We review their financial statements, look at the eligible re

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  There is no collateral. We secure ties to revenue stream.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  We don't do risk lending.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  One of the things I mentioned was the monetization of capital dollars. If $150 million, as an example, were monetized on an annual basis for 10 years, just over $1 billion could be leveraged at today's dollars. When you do the math, it's.... I don't know what the average cost of

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  Yes, we could. The other suggestion—