Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  Actually, Kahnawake uses that for housing loans. It's their mortgage system. Effectively, they put the control of the home, the mortgageable asset, in the hands of a trust, which is a local community, and it would allow transfer of ownership if there were a non-repayment of loan.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  For the trust funds, those are the revenues, typically from non-renewable resources, that go into federal trusts. There are a number of lawsuits pending for a number of first nations who have.... Typically, the largest pools have about ten or twelve first nations, and it's mostly

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  We have eight full-service branches and four community banking centres. They're primarily in aboriginal communities or in centres where aboriginal business tends to congregate. The head office is in Saskatoon. We have a branch just outside of Meadow Lake in Mr. Clarke's riding. H

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  It works for municipal governments, provincial governments, and the federal government to take government-like revenues and use government bonds to finance infrastructure. That's what the fiscal institutions were created for, and they still have a place and a role to play in that

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  If you take five-year and ten-year loans and refinance them as 30-year loans and spread payment out over 30 years, your actual cost of borrowing, which is your interest, is really much greater. It's like taking—

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  Exactly. The government is trying to convince people away from going into mortgages that are 50-year loans with 5% down. You don't want that, but you're encouraging first nations to go into 30-year bond financing with no money down and a 10-year fixed price. I don't know about yo

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  But we also pay depositors more money when interest rates are higher. At the same time, what you're encouraging through FNFA is for people to be taking out big amounts of credit at all-time lows in interest rates and spreading the loan out over 30 years. There's no assurance th

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  They are. For example, if we get a loan that is marginal to qualify for our purposes, we may actually partner on some of those loans with an AFI. There are aboriginal capital corporations, for example, that we work with to bridge a client who is almost out of their system and a

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  They may put in a little more of the risk capital and we may do the commercial loan and together it works. But our whole attempt, between the AFIs and ourselves, is to keep moving that business up the chain.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  We have spoken to representatives in a number of programs and aboriginal development organizations in other countries. Although we always have something to learn from other countries, the circumstances are always different. Frankly, my experience of Australia is that a lot of t

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  In many communities, the land management act works very well. It provides more certainty around the first nation. For example, when they're doing a land lease for a commercial development such as a strip mall in the community, instead of having to go to Aboriginal Affairs and N

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  No. SBLs don't work on reserve because of the security issue under the Indian Act.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  I think it's the same issue. I believe it is.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  Or they have their own equity. For example, many of the first nations with land claims now have a capital stake in a trust and are able to support and sponsor their businesses for future development. They have equity.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  Right.