The idea for the First Nations Infrastructure Institute, or FNII, is to support communities to advance their infrastructure projects and work, as Allan Claxton mentioned, with any Indigenous organization or First Nation to advance those projects and build a solid business case, a robust business case, to manage risks associated with the projects moving forward. They are complicated projects, as you know, such as water, waste water, roads and connectivity. They can take several years to develop. Sometimes you even have project planning that goes over election cycles, so having some support and stability through those is important. We know the infrastructure needs are great across the country. We have been talking to communities, as Allan Claxton mentioned, for the past several years, right across Canada. We have done a couple of proof-of-concept projects to think it through as to how FNII will be able to support the projects, and we’re looking forward to getting to work.

Thanks.

The access to capital is a huge one. We’re not going to get out of the challenges we face without the use of the federal balance sheet through federal loan guarantees. That’s a reality and Canada needs to accept that and bring it forward, in my view.

We need fiscal powers. If we’re going to move down the path toward the recognition of the inherent right to self-government, we need to have those powers. There needs to be room at the fiscal table made for First Nations.

The topic taking place today about the enforcement of First Nation laws is absolutely critical as we move forward into the next generation of the evolution of this relationship.

As I mentioned in a speech I gave in Toronto, it was clearly historical that the Catholic Church renounced the Doctrine of Discovery, but I asked the assembled crowd in Toronto whether or not we should all do the same thing, because unless we’re all prepared to do that, we will not get a transition from a colonial system to an inherent rights system. You have to be patient and move in that direction.

When you talk about what are some of the challenges, the bureaucrats need to be in power to make some decisions, and the government has to be prepared to make those decisions. You are going to not continue to pursue the extinguishment of rights. You have to realize that in 1982, we passed the Constitution and spent 40 years in the courts arguing over what it means. How much opportunity have we lost? How many more multi-billion-dollar settlements does Canada want to have to face until they give us the reins to our own destiny? Thank you.

It’s one of the first times that we’ve had the ability, as an Indian Act band, to make a decision as a government. Up until this act — and things like the First Nations Land Management Act — it was always top down. We were always told. I think the fact that First Nations had the opportunity to consider this in their own right was attractive to them. As more and more economic opportunities started to come on to their radar screen, they became more interested in what we were doing. But it’s the first time, in my view, we had the opportunity as a government to make a decision and to move into some areas of government that we historically had.