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Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee Yes, certainly. There is a lot that the federal government can do and that it has contributed to in the past. I mentioned the equity issue: it's just not there in the community. They don't have the assets that you would find in the non-aboriginal community for people wanting to
May 5th, 2015Committee meeting
Francine Whiteduck
Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee First of all, way back in the early eighties, they did start tracking how many loans were going to aboriginal women and to youth and taking a look at how we were having an impact. Along with the Canadian trend itself, aboriginal women are following that, although they're behind i
May 5th, 2015Committee meeting
Francine Whiteduck
Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee Yes, we have the aboriginal capacity development program, ACD—there are a lot of acronyms in this world—that is available with training in and for the AFIs where they require supports. Some of the AFIs have some mentorship programs that provide the care that is needed for the abo
May 5th, 2015Committee meeting
Francine Whiteduck
Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee Certainly, there is a continuum of lenders out there. Keith spoke of it in terms of the AFIs. It's developmental loan, so it's high risk. We're dealing with entrepreneurs who are learning. They've had little or low experience in running a business. They don't have credit. Also, t
May 5th, 2015Committee meeting
Francine Whiteduck
Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee The reason I talk about a dedicated fund is that right now the capital is all thrown in there and there's nothing dedicated. It's discretionary. Because a lot of the funding we get is from Aboriginal Affairs, it's discretionary. If somebody needs to build an infrastructure proj
May 5th, 2015Committee meeting
Francine Whiteduck
Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee With respect to financial literacy, I mentioned that the AFIs have played a role. As we look at their development over time, we can see that AFIs were greatly involved in our communities in the education process regarding financial literacy. When they started in the early 1980s,
May 5th, 2015Committee meeting
Francine Whiteduck
Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee We have made a lot of movement. We worked with Deloitte this year to do an independent study of the liquidity and the needs of the AFIs in the network, and to look at how we could structure this capital-attraction tool. We've come up with some notional ideas, and there were some
May 5th, 2015Committee meeting
Francine Whiteduck
Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee One thing we saw there was that there was an assumption that there was a lot of liquidity in the system, and the interviews with the AFIs have proven that it's not nearly as high as everybody was touting before. It's actually quite small. That was one of the underlying assumption
May 5th, 2015Committee meeting
Francine Whiteduck
Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee Thank you. [Witness speaks in Algonquin] I'm from Kitigan Zibi. It's nice to be in the territory to present to you. My name is Francine Whiteduck. I am the CEO of the National Aboriginal Capital Corporations Association. Attending with me today is Kevin Schindelka, our directo
May 5th, 2015Committee meeting
Francine Whiteduck