 Good afternoon and thank you for joining us today for our webinar on Indigenous Self-Determination through Fiscal Governance. We're excited because this is the first in a series of webinars that the BC Ideas Exchange will be hosting in collaboration with the Indigenous Economic Development and Reconciliation Speaker Series. My name is Jessica Ritchie and I'm with the Regional Programs and Engagement Branch, which is part of the Ministry of Jobs, Economic Development and Competitiveness. I'll be providing the technical support for today's webinar, as well as supporting the question and answer period at the end of the session. I'm located in Victoria, British Columbia, on the unceded, co-salish territory of the Louisville-Kwangan people, known today as the Esquimalt and Songhees First Nations. I'm just going to go over a couple of housekeeping elements and then I'll hand it over to my colleague, Chris Beshard, who will introduce you to the series and today's speaker. More and more, we're getting used to being online, but if you haven't been on go-to webinar, there's a couple of things that are worth knowing. First, if you're having trouble with audio or network issues, there is also the option to call in with your phone. So you can click on the phone call option and it'll pop up with a phone number and an individual pin for you to enter that way. We are going to be having a question period at the end of the session. So if you do have any questions, you can type them into the question pane and we'll be reviewing those and trying to ask as many as we can at the end of the session. And last but not least, if you want to access today's slides and presentation, you can do so in the handout drop-down menu. So if you click on that, you'll see today's presentation as well as a number of different resources to support the series. And last but not least, today's session is being recorded. So if you know of anyone that may find this information valuable or if you'd like to share it, we'll be posting it on gov.bc.ca-economic-development. And you can look for it under the BCID as exchange webinars and success stories section. You can also find on that page an option to sign up for our email list. That means you'll receive notifications about all upcoming webinars, including this series. And you'll be able to find out about the other economic development webinars that we support. So with that, housekeeping is out of the way and I'm going to hand it over to my colleague Chris. I am trying just to get my camera going. I'm having delayed connectivity here. Well, we thank you. Good afternoon. I also am privileged to be speaking to you today from the traditional territories of the Lekongan peoples. Before we begin, I'd like to say a little bit about the Indigenous Economic Development and Reconciliation Speaker Series. The series seeks to build capacity both in terms of awareness of Indigenous economic development perspectives and the ability to engage and collaborate with Indigenous organizations and peoples in pursuing economic opportunity. Today's presentation is the third in the series of six interconnected talks to be delivered through to the end of this year. And they're all governance and economic renewal. So in January, we had the Tulu Center of Indigenous Economics providing an overview presentation. And that was followed in March by the First Nations Lands Advisory Board speaking on Indigenous self-determination through land governance. Today, the First Nations Financial Management Board will speak on Indigenous self-determination through financial management so we're bringing all the pieces together. In the fall, look to hear from other Indigenous organizations focused on taxation and borrowing as well as from two First Nations communities about the benefits that land and fiscal self-governance has created for their people. So we're fortunate to have with us today, very fortunate, I would say, Mr. Harold Calla, Executive Chair of the First Nations Financial Management Board. Harold is a member of the Squamish Nation located in North Vancouver, BC. After many years of experience in international business, he worked with the Squamish Nation as a negotiator in the areas of economic development, land management and finance, helping the nation to move out from under the Indian Act and become self-governing in these areas. He served eight years on the Squamish Council and has also acted as an advisor and arbitrator for other First Nations in Western Canada. Harold has served on numerous governing boards and is currently a member of the Board of Directors of Trans Mountain Corporation, as well as a member of the Joint Assembly of First Nations and Indigenous Services Canada Committee on Fiscal Relations. He's also the recipient of numerous awards in recognition of excellence and leadership. In particular, the Certified General Accountants Association of Canada on its 100th anniversary, recognized Harold as one of 100 CGA's who have made a difference and we all like to make a difference. The Financial Management Board is doing important work in terms of creating the legal space and providing the institutional supports that enable First Nations self-governance over their finances. For more on the Financial Management Board and its activities, please welcome Mr. Harold Calla. Thank you, Chris. I'm assuming everyone can hear me and I do appreciate the opportunity to be here today and I appreciate those of you who have joined. I think the place to start on the Financial Management Board is to appreciate some of the early history that really has its genesis and with the 1988 amendment to the Indian Act that clarified the opportunities around taxation and in British Columbia the Indian Self-Government Enabling Act that clarified that the province of municipalities would back out of the taxation field on reserve when a First Nation entered into that field. It started a process of building capacity in First Nation communities around fiscal issues. And during this time, and that was in, you know, 88, 90, a lot has changed. Certainly many Supreme Court of Canada decisions have brought some clarity around section 25 and 35, although they haven't fully defined it. We continue to move forward on some basis. And what we have found through that basis of engagement is that there's a capacity gap in First Nation communities. But when we initiated the BC Treaty making process, too often many communities didn't have the technical capacity to begin to appreciate the kinds of matters that they needed to consider. So many First Nations, particularly in British Columbia came together in the mid 90s and decided that we wanted to create our own institutional framework to provide the oversight to manage fiscal capacity, access capital, and to provide administrative governance. You should also appreciate that in the early years, the Municipal Finance Authority of British Columbia was instrumental in providing advice to our First Nations and how we might create a vehicle that would enable First Nations to have access to capital. And you should appreciate that that continues to this day to be one of the major impediments that prevents economic development from occurring on reserve because we don't have the ability as a government to raise the kind of capital that other orders of government do at the same cost as other order of government until the fiscal management that came to be part of what we have understood through this process is the need to do several things. And we'll just talk about some of those things as we go through. So, Jessica, let's go to the next one. Next slide. So that's generally what we're going to talk about. I will speak to the slides but not recite them. Let's go to the next page. Who is FMB, what do we do, and how does FMB relate to other First Nations? Let's go to the next slide. Okay, we're a national organization. The Fiscal Management Act is optional legislation. In other words, a First Nation must declare to their council that they wish to be part of the Fiscal Management Act. That came a requirement when many First Nations in Canada didn't see national legislation as a legitimate approach to implementing Aboriginal rights and title. And there was a real risk that we couldn't get it until we came to an agreement with others across the country that they couldn't saw those who wanted to proceed providing that they were not obligated to be a part of it. It publishes them for financial management systems and financial performance. Many of you were around in 2008 during the capital markets meltdown and following that an organization called COSO developed standards. And we made reference to those standards and looking at how the financial management board would respond to our legislative authority to approve standards and certified financial management systems and financial performance. And what we were able to achieve is an acknowledgement that our standards are consistent with COSO. That resulted in market, capital market acceptance and the ability of the finance authority to secure credit ratings. The other thing that we realized at the time is there are a lot of allegations around mismanagement of financial affairs and Indigenous communities. And if we didn't take control of that agenda ourselves, we would be subject to what others deemed it to be. And so one of the major selling points of this process was to actually engage the First Nations communities in the development of their own laws and their own administrative processes that would allow them access to capital and provide good governments that they could point to for all stakeholders including their membership. Our services are optional provided in no cost. We're a non-profit organization. We're structured through a board of directors appointed by the governor council on AFOE Canada. But we do function independently of government. Government has been, the federal government has been very true to its word in how it appoints boards and how we are allowed as a board to fulfill what we believe to be the mandates of the organization based on the purposes of the app. And you might one day want to look at those purposes because they're very broad and they're really intended to support First Nations as they move towards a self-government and inclusion in this federation. And government has allowed us to remain independent. And we do sometimes not always agree. Next slide, please. So the biggest thing we needed to understand and have First Nations communities understand is that we need to improve our financial management systems. All too often our whole accounting system was based upon a need to report expenditures on eligible programs that were funded through various programs and services. And really that was the extent of our financial management systems, our whole philosophy, our whole attitude. That is now changing because First Nations are now not just becoming managers of programs and services, but they're becoming social enterprises and they are engaged in the economy of their reasons. The recent Supreme Court of Canada decisions over the last 10 or so years have really pointed to the need for First Nations inclusion in the national economy, particularly in the natural resource economy. And if we didn't understand that before, we certainly will understand it now because at the end of the day Canada found itself having to buy a pipeline in order to move it forward. So developing financial management systems, having confidence, having stakeholders have confidence in the advance was seen as critical to emerging into this whole new world. We also needed a pathway to long-term financing. When I came home to my home community in 1987, I went to the bank to borrow money. I couldn't do that without the Minister of Indian Affairs guaranteeing the loan. No other order of government had that, and we needed to move beyond that. We also became very involved in the BC Tree process and got involved in the fiscal conversations during that process. And we realized that Indian bans needed to move away from parliamentary appropriations that saw a 12-month funding cycle in the main. And while there were a number of initiatives that looked at five-year funding agreements, they really weren't allowing First Nations to plan in a way that they needed to. And that we needed to move to long-term grants. And part of the work that's now being done at a national level is talking about moving to statutory grants. That this interim staff is looking at 10-year grants from Indigenous Services Canada to provide the opportunity for First Nations to better plan. The challenge we have with that at the moment is that not all funding, all the folks are included in 10-year grants. And there's an ongoing conversation about why we need to do that. Next slide, please. Okay, well, we said, where do we come from and why? Well, we came from First Nations across the country who became proponents of the development of legislation, mainly in Atlanta, Canada and British Columbia. It was optional. It was hard for us, it took us four years to construct this legislation. When you do so for those provisions of the FMA, you move outside of the Indian Act. And we now have almost half of the Indian fans in the country participating. Next slide. We have a task to mention the Finance Authority and the Financial Management Board. Originally there was the Stats Institute, but the Hartford government disbanded that institution in a budget implementation act. We're hoping that it will be restored because one of the things that we all recognize is that unless you have data to work from in the world that we work in today within the Federation and outside of it, it's very difficult. And what we have now realized is there's a sad lack of data in our communities, particularly our financial matters. So we're hoping that this act will be expanded to include a Stats Institute and ultimately an infrastructure institute. The next slide, if we go to slide 10, please. One of the things that it took a while for people to come to grasp is this is a systemic change. We're moving away from the order of doing things that started actually in 1967 when we began moving into program delivery. We thought it was self-government, but we didn't realize it was just self-administration. But it took a philosophical shift because all of a sudden you had to start making decisions and you had to take responsibility for those decisions. And some saw it as an abandonment of fiduciary duty and some of the original rights and title. What we've now come to understand through the success that's happened since 2007 when we actually began operations is that it hasn't impacted ever its own rights and title. Now, when you look at Supreme Court decisions, some of those that have been initiated by clients of the Fifth Management Act, they have been enhanced. What we came to understand and what we had to explain through that process is that to exist in a modern-day world you needed modern-day tools. You had to engage with government on levels that they understood. And that's what we've been able to achieve. Next slide, please. So the main things that we do in the Financial Management Board is support the finance authority and the tax commission initially in the administration of fiscal capacity with the tax commission and with the first-nation finance authority in their ability to access capital. We're the gatekeeper. We're much like, I don't know if they still call it the inspector of municipalities, used to be. I may be showing my age there. But we were the gatekeeper to the access to fiscal capacity and access to capital through the finance authority. And we do this through the development of a first-nation law that they passed that deals with these main areas, finance, governance, information management, and human resources. Next slide, please. Okay, our certifications for financial performance or appointing time assessment, we do not monitor. We are not providing an opinion on through the viability of any community. What we're saying is here are standards for financial performance. We receive five years of uttered financial statements. We do some analysis and our staff makes a recommendation to the board that our standards have been met or they're not. We need to be clear that the legislation says the board shall not make, shall approve a certification if the standards are met. What we are doing on an ongoing basis, particularly with ten-year grants, is we're not issuing a new certificate every year, but we are observing the financial statements that are posted on a community's website. And we're updating our financial performance criteria and our standard information to determine the trending that is happening first nations. That's proving to be very helpful around ten-year grants. And part of what this does is provide confidence to all stakeholders, but particularly government agencies and membership on the direction of the financial health of an organization. And it's being used to determine the eligibility to borrow from the first nation finance authority. Next slide. We often like to say that you pass the financial administration law and that says what you're going to do to manage your finances. The financial management system says how you're going to do it. And you must be in compliance with your own file. And you must be in compliance with the financial management system standards that calls for the implementation of policies and procedures. And we've developed standard, almost statements of recommended practices around policies and procedures that first nations can download and apply. We also have a very significant capacity development team that goes out to communities and helps them through the policy development procedure process. We test those things and we offer the ability to have a certification. There are some fundamental changes that take place philosophically in our communities to go through this process. Most communities look at achievement councils as the ultimate authority and they still are. But they also have to grasp the concepts of supporting that decision making model with policies and procedures. So we have things like an audit committee we have things like a complex of interest independence those kind of measures that we bring into the operation of a financial management system. But haven't always been in place and sometimes are seen as a threat in indigenous communities and you know I've often heard but who are you to tell me what to do. This is not our way in our community. And that's the beauty of this being optional. If you don't want to be part of this game. You don't have to be if you want to stay down that path and can stay down that path but as we like to say to them or I do. I'm also working for it so far. Do you need access to capital do you need better financing management. Do you how are your business operations undertake being undertaken. And so, you know, being from a community and being from being in a place where I've done a lot of this work. It gives me it offers me the opportunity where I can say those things I'm not always appreciated but I haven't been thrown out of any place yet. But sometimes there's some tough love that has to be delivered. Next slide please. So what we say is look at promote transparency and accountability. Very important piece. If we're going to increase our physical capacity through the sharing and the gaining of a seat at the fiscal table with Canada and the provinces. We have to be transparent and accountable. We have good financial practices and administrative governance practices in order for those who would be willing to share to not see the risks of that sharing, resulting in a disaster. And I think most importantly, we need access to long term financing, and it rates that are competitive. One is that I think we've come to conclusion that this community that we cannot rely on transfers from government to get us out of the poverty and circumstances we find ourselves in. We need to develop economies, we need to have access to private sector capital in order to be able to achieve all of those things. And so we can respond to the needs of the capital markets. We're not going to be able to do that. And part of what the fiscal management act and the financial management board does is provide that oversight framework that is consistent with COSO that is given the rating agency's confidence to the finance authority to borrow now almost $1 billion at a double A credit rating. Next slide. So, one of the things we're learning, and it's particularly applicable in British Columbia is we have many smaller communities. They do not have the ability to develop a full blown financial management system or an information system for that market, quite frankly. We're coming to appreciate the need for what we're calling a shared services platform where there can be shared capacity among numbers of first nations. We also need to support first nations moving beyond 12 year cash flow budgeting as the means for financial management, and to support long term planning and increase opportunities for success. Here's transparency and accountability members, future partners and lenders as we become more proactive as social enterprises. The private sector and government needs to have confidence in what we do. We provide the tools and support through our capacity development team, and we don't just abandon them. You know, one of the challenges in the treaty process that I have heard from those communities who signed treaties is once the treaty was signed everybody bailed and left the first nation communities to themselves. Many of those communities we're working with today to try to build that capacity. I think that I know that there are some in British Columbia who have viewed the fiscal management act as an attraction to the incentive for treaties. I think what you need to understand that these provide the necessary support mechanisms that allow for a meaningful treaty negotiations and implementation. And this is not the strong administrative governance of financial practices and improve risk management. We have to look at the new relationship that we're going to develop under under section 2535 of the Constitution and then these new self government arrangements is not a way in which to minimize the ability to benefit economically from its participation in the Federation of Canada, but to benefit appropriately and to recognize that we need substantial investment at all levels of government to bridge the gaps. Or we're going to continue to feed the beast of social disorder and the sum of costs will be significantly greater. I was in a phone conversation with the Deputy Minister of Finance yesterday in which we discussed enhanced revenue sharing and he had a fascinating statement around First Nations ability to share in the GST revenue and he said we came to the conclusion that if we didn't share it, it was going to cost us more by not having that tax on reserve. And so I think British Columbia is moving in a positive direction, but part of the discussion is going to have to happen in the future is what does that fiscal financing framework look like under under it. And let's continue to move forward in a way where we, we all want treaties but not on the terms of the existing mandates. And I think what we're going to find is that we're going to continue to develop our capacity to engage with Canada and the provinces and a level playing field. And we'll find one day that we'll wake up and all those things we've been looking for and treaties are already there. Next slide please. The treaties in British Columbia have been tremendously successful using the Fiscal Management Act and the Financial Management Board to gain the tools that they need to implement their community development plans. One of the things that we require is our financial national system certification. It's actually the development of a community development plan, a long term plan. I think that each of these communities can be found on our website and you can talk to them, but they have had significant improvements in their well being. One of the sheets that I, one of the research pieces that we've done is we have found even those communities who find themselves in some form of default management with is once they become involved in our certification process. We've seen over the five years that they've increased their own social revenue by 60 to 70% and that many of them have moved out of third party management as a result of our certification process in record time. One of these communities and one of those communities that I can say was gets a Google who were in one form of default management for 20 years. We got them out in three years, and they're now eligible to borrow because they've achieved a financial certificate. But it's because we invested in our capacity development and spent the time and brought the capacity that we believe a shared services module can bring to personation communities that will help many of the smaller communities in British Columbia come together. One of the things that became very clear was that at the time that 16 or 17 groups were running across northern British Columbia with natural gas and oil pipelines, there was a locally inadequate capacity in personation communities in that area to understand what was being asked or even what to ask for. And too often we were responding instead of proposing and in the absence of that capacity. Everybody just said no. I got a phone call from some of those communities and from former Senator, she are Jerry Saint Germain and said, can't you help these people with the fiscal management app and the federal government funded us for three or four years. And we were able to develop some models and approaches that gave people a perspective of what was on the table, how they might manage their affairs and how what benefits might come from their participation. And that included making appropriate recommendations on environmental assessment processes, including environmental assessments and being able to contribute to the federal process of renewing all of those initiatives. That all came from the result of those communities in northern British Columbia coming together and sharing ideas and deciding that they weren't competing against one another, but that they should actually be cooperating with one another. Next slide please. What we've seen across Canada is this is what has happened to those communities who have provided the leadership of their communities to move through the fiscal management act and access capital. Access fiscal capacity. They've invested in school social programs, recreational facilities, purchase land, fish plants, public private partnership projects, green energy projects, road utility projects, housing, developments, building improvements, clean water projects. All of this has been done outside of any federal funding envelope. In some cases we're staffing those on the loose. And I think it provides a unique opportunity for British Columbia as they move forward with this reconciliation agenda to understand that as that reconciliation agenda. Enable First Nation economic participation that there are tools that can be brought to the table for First Nation communities to have these impacts. Next slide please. Okay, so the evolution. Next slide. You have to look at our purposes and under the act and I would encourage you to do so. They were very broad and they were designed specifically to be very broad so that we can interpret them. But since 2006. What we have proven is that the fiscal management. It's a living piece of legislation involves the response to the needs of First Nation communities. And in some cases, the federal government. The federal government followed in default management in 2008 because then Minister Carol Carol Bennett said, Carol, help me get rid of third party managers are not building any capacity, it's like an annuity to them. And it's costing me three to $500,000 a year for clients. So we developed a model to do those things. And we're now finally, I think, going to find an amendment in through regulation to the legislation that will enable modern day treaties to avail themselves to the borrowing capacity that fiscal management. But one has to ask why it took us 10 years to get there. Why this attitude that we can't enable first nations to benefit from physical capacity that we always have to be the higher authority as it has led to an inability for 10 years for those modern day treaty first nations to benefit from that. We're also now going to be able to provide administrative and service services to first nation organizations, which I think is going to be really important. Next slide please. So, again, some of these things you may want to look to with section 40, 150 and 55 deal within the event. We're now starting to move outside of the event to self covering first nation party, treaties, a tribal councils and first nation organizations. So the mandate is being expanded. Next slide please. Yeah, I think, again, for any neck bands, this is basically with our bread butter service. It's what we do financial administration laws, financial management systems and financial performance and enabling access to capital and management of physical capacity. Next slide please. We also do policy research and review services relating to fiscal arrangements between first nations and other governments. When they wanted to become the chair of the national board, I said, well, I will, but only if I can continue to do what I do and at that time I was involved. I was the senior official British Columbia representing first nations in the treaty process around tax and fiscal and realize that that role need to be have a home, not just for British Columbia, but for across Canada. And so we do that. And again, we're setting standards for the things that the rating agency and investment bank shall find appropriate. One of the reasons why the finance authority has been able to achieve a double a credit rating is the financial management board has intervention authority under the legislation said somebody prepared as well. We've never had to use it and don't expect to but it's the same reporting measure that the inspector municipality has in British Columbia. Next, please. Thank you for your grass responded to the then elected little government's attempt to begin to look at a new relationship with indigenous people. They listened to the things that we've been saying for 10 years or more about a need for longer term financial commitments so that it could be longer term planning, and we needed to begin talking about securitization. We're seeing government in this country that had to fund infrastructure within a 12 month cash flow cycle. There was no leveraging capacity. There was no fiscal capacity, no other order of government actually operates on that basis or can operate on that basis. One of the things that we found is that when Canada went to look at how it would respond to treasury board and finances risk management regime that they turned to the financial management board and the work that we had done around financial and financial performance and financial management systems and in a negotiation with the end took those standards modified them a little bit and then determine that those would be the eligibility criteria. So what was an unprecedented step at that time is said that it's will not make these recommendations under this in compliance. It will be the financial management board. And we accepted that opportunity to do that. Much to the surprise of some, but we felt at that time at the board level that if we're going to replace it and at that time you have to remember that Canada had made the commitment that it was sunset that we had to develop our own institutional framework to start making those kinds of decisions. And so the board and it and the and made a decision to move forward on that basis. Next slide please. This is kind of a measure of our success today. It's actually improved since then. But 294 have scheduled 211 have passed financial administration laws 171 of financial performance certificates and 41 have moved along the financial management systems criteria to get certified. Now we gave everybody a three to four year period to do this. The financial management system certification is the most extensive work that has to be done because it involves a complete retooling of your administrative and financial management government structures. And we provide a lot of support for those communities to do that. Next slide please. This gives you a distribution of what it's like across the country and you'll see in British Columbia. We're leading the way again. Not surprisingly given that we almost represent one third of the communities across Canada. So, but you can see the geographic representation across Canada. And we're starting to see now increased or accelerating takeoff in communities as we see communities across Canada who have moved forward particularly in Manitoba and in Quebec and one or two in Ontario and others around them are seeing the success that they're enjoying. You look at the River First Nation in Manitoba, the Opaspia Accreation. These communities have now turned themselves into significant operations where they're capturing the economic activity within their own communities. The leakage has been curtailed to a certain extent and their communities are benefiting from that exercise. Next slide please. This is a list of the communities you might want to look at at some point to understand which communities you might be involved with on your dealing with. Next slide please. So this is the future. Next slide. We've proven that the Physical Management Act works. Next slide. How can you in financial management is absolutely critical in this exercise. Communities like Squamas, Muscovim, West Bank, Tleiliput and a few others have the financial resources that they can do that. Many communities do not. And one of the things that we're proposing is that we need to be in a position where Canada invests in establishing a shared services platform. Initially many of these things may find themselves not requiring funding from the federal or provincial governments. But until we transition to a new fiscal model, an economic model, it's not going to happen without that. We can't expect, as I believe it happened in the treaty process, to get to a point where you turn the lights switch on and walk out the door. We have to stay there and we have to support these things. I think that working with a governance model is reflective of UNDRIP as we are proposing through the financial management board is going to be important piece. Having increased fiscal capacity and fiscal powers is going to be very important. One of the reasons as you well know, municipalities, provincial and federal governments have access to the capital markets is they have governance and jurisdiction to raise revenues. First Nations are going to need a share of that with you. And that doesn't mean that we're going to replace you as the authority, but we need a sharing arrangement. I think that we need to acknowledge that Canada is still in the main and natural resource extraction economy. We may choose how we want to manage that economy, but I think we need to engage with First Nations communities in a way that enables them to make free prior form tent decisions and provides them the opportunity in the long term to see how they can benefit. About six years ago, I went across Canada at the request of the federal government to talk about First Nations engagement and major resource development. And it was fascinating because we met many local governments along the way. And I'll never forget the then mayor of Prince George saying to us as we gather, I don't like this. Yes, I get a lot of benefit when the construction phase is here, but when when it's built, we don't get anything and get very little. But if there's a problem, I have a big problem. And so I think what I learned from that is that we need to be in a position where those kinds of risks are managed. And quite frankly, many local governments turned to First Nations to protect that risk where they could not. So the major projects coalition, I think is a very useful tool. There's now 60 most of whom are British Columbia that are looking at coastal gas link. They're looking at the Kenny Dan run to the river or a water project. They're looking at. Economic benefits from trans now. And they're looking at how to improve the environmental assessments and approvals. You know, one of the things that happened in British Columbia. And was the smaller stations how it dealt with wood fire for and that it stood down federal provincial processes and did its own environmental assessment. And issued its own certificate and I remember at the time when I would go to Ottawa or somewhere in the province everybody was a bit vexed and a bit crazy about why they were doing it and I kept saying to them just wait till the outcome. You might, you might like it. And that sent swamish out into the non indigenous community in Lions Bay, Bowman Island and other places to talk about the wood fire project and at the end of the day the returns and conditions and swamish issued its own certificate. They didn't have any legal standing no. Except in the swamish nation and it's the end. But what it did is it enabled that project to move forward. Those are the kinds of joint decision making models that we have to eventually evolve to. And these are the kinds of things that developing capacity administrative capacity and other things that we can see coming from an engagement. In an institutional platform for indigenous communities that emulates to a certain degree, those of other orders of government, a new fiscal relationship can be supported through the work that we do. And I think that what we need to begin to appreciate is that a new relationship. Does mean that there will be some shared decision making and some shared fiscal capacity, but that it will overall grow the economy. So that any revenue sharing that takes place with this is communities will not take place at the expense of this thing revenue streams. So that's what I have to say, and I will leave it open to those of you who may have some questions. Thank you Harold for an informative and engaging presentation. At this time as Harold says we'll be taking questions from the audience if you haven't had an opportunity to do so. You can do that via the go to webinar question function that you see to the right of your screen. So starting Harold with the, we have a handful of questions. Do members appointed quote at the pleasure of the PM. Yes, they are. But it is through process and engagement. In the case of the chair is appointed separately from the other members of the board. Other members of the board are appointed the chair of the board is very involved in conversations with the, the team of bureaucrats and political representatives staffers who are involved. And that has been the case it doesn't matter which government's been in power. The government has respected that three of the members in it because we are a shared governance model are appointed by April a candidate independently. Okay, thank you. You mentioned a first nation as a social enterprise what does this look like in terms of a nation's overall fiscal management and standards. I think I look at social enterprise in the context of first nations as first nations engaging in the development on the ground of what they believe their average rights entitled to be. And generally involves economic activity. They're for profit kind of initiatives. And so that brings first nations into a very different perspective because in many cases now they have to look they have to manage business risk. They have to analyze business opportunity. They have to look at the return, the economic return from very different perspectives than they did historically. This is now not just a relationship between the federal and provincial governments and transfer systems. This is now a matter of managing business risk and understanding the benefits from managing that risk and the kind of capital you need to participate in the economy. That's what I believe social enterprise to be. We take that money that we get, and we drive it into our communities and many cases for the social to bridge the gap in the social needs that we have. Okay, we did have a specific question now about Salto it may have been answered by your slide. This individual is wondering whether the Salto ever completed the process with FMB. Many of them have, and I have to say that I believe they did. I don't have every one of those at my fingertips. I find often is during a term that we start with the file financial performance and move to financial management system. There are several regime changes within a first nation community, particularly those on two year election cycles. Often we find we have to step back a bit to go back into those communities and explain again the nature of what we're doing and the benefits of what we're doing. There's also some administrative here. Within those that have managed to provide some confidence in what's happening in those communities that in the distribution of authorities that we bring with a financial management system they'll lose control. And things will go to hell on handbasket as they can do from time to time. So we have to fight is this administrative apprehension and this council political renewal from time to time and generally it takes 3 to 4 to 5 years for a community as we've gone through these cycles to get to that end. What we have found is that as we go through these cycles and there's a gravitation back to the way things that were done the way things were done in the past. Some of which were not consistent with the kind of approaches that we propose of transparency and accountability. There is some resistance. And it takes a game going back and explaining what the benefits of this are. What we are finding is that many indigenous community members want this transparency and accountability. But it does pretend a challenge to us from time to time because somebody of my man said this is not Aboriginal rights and title. Who are you to tell us what to do. And you've got to start from there. I've been into many of those communities. Okay Harold. A question that's drilling down a bit to the small business level. Can you speak to some specific instances that your work is directly or indirectly supporting small business to pivot in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Well, part of what we've been. With engagement is with the federal government and ensuring that their gap measures include the First Nations. And initially, they haven't. Initially, the concept was that if you didn't pay taxes, you weren't eligible for any programs and services. They conveniently found that for those who know the circumstance and any Indian man that was considered to be a government under section 149 149 one of the income tax act. In other words, you pass the authorities you are then a public institution and therefore not eligible. We've been successful in modifying that someone. And there are recent announcements of about $130 million that have been made that money will flow through the regions. Unfortunately, I say that as the mechanism, but it is intended to bridge some gaps. But we're still unsuccessful in getting the government to acknowledge that they're going to need to understand that they're going to have to replace some lost revenue. Bridging some expenditure gaps is not going to be the sole solution here. Many First Nations businesses don't have reach of return that are comparable to those businesses offered. And you can simply build up a future debt. And expect those businesses to survive. And we're continuing to educate on the behalf of those communities who have spoken to us in that vein. Certainly, you know, there was money that was immediately presented and BC region I thought did an excellent job in getting that money out the door, the First Nations communities. But really, what did the $315 the Scottish Indian band sent me as a COVID response, what did that accomplish. Not a hell of a lot. And so I think that we're continuing to work with governments to say, you need to not just as I said, the definition of finance, you have to stop being a teller. And handing out money. You need to start making investment in business businesses and business communities through infrastructure development and through business and support for businesses that creates employment and opportunities. And we continue to have those discussions and we'll continue to have those discussions with him on the ball. And I think Chris, that's another significant difference between my time as a counselor or working with the swamp Indian pan and my mind now as the chair of the national organization called the Financial Management Board. I can have a discussion with the Deputy Minister of Finance, where I could not before. I can call that progress. When a First Nation receives financial management certification by FNFA. What interest rates can be obtained. Finance projects, etc. Well FNFA doesn't give them certification the Financial Management Board does. Right. And you must take the finance authority can't consider you until you have that. The First Nation Finance Authority recently issued a $240 million to venture in New York. It was pre sold in about 20 minutes. And this time, it was 10 year money at 1.9%. And that's the fundamental difference between First Nations as the government and First Nations having to go to the retail banking community. The finance authority of British Columbia, the collective offers municipalities and British Columbia the opportunity to come together as a collective and benefit from that collective in achieving comparable rates. I'm sure their rates are at 1.9% now to or something less than because they're a triple A rating. And I think that this is the significant difference that comes through participation in the fiscal management act in our oversight framework that's in that. Because it allows access to capital as a social enterprise and as a government that you couldn't otherwise have. And that creates physical capacity of First Nations through the sharing of revenue streams that go to other orders of government at the moment, they're going to be able to leverage those revenue streams at the same kind of rates of 1.9%. And how many options become more viable at that rate instead of 68% going to the capital markets or in some cases 10 to 12%. Well, I would say that's a massive difference and it really opens up your options. When you think about the First Nations businesses, social enterprises, how do you see the governance structures for economic development. And the interaction with the chiefs and council. Yeah, I think that's full question. Any of those practices and what could be strengthened. Okay, well, that is an excellent question that we have been working on for the last year. And we'll soon have for an exposure draft on the standards for First Nations organization and businesses. What we have continued to say is that council can never delegate its authority. Council also always must have the ultimate decision. And in the financial reporting of a indigenous government, they report either under the modified equity or consolidated basis all of these enterprises. And enterprises must adhere to the same kind of financial management practices of producing budget, long-term planning and reporting. In many cases they do not. That that would change with those who would choose to use the FMA as the vehicle to access chief capital. So, now, in saying that, understand and again, if you were to go to our website and look at the standards around conflict of interest independence. And in particular the operation of audit committees. Chief and council cannot find itself but should not find itself. If it's in compliance with the standards. Going into a business enterprises dictated. These matters should all be reported. The other thing that we talk about also for businesses and organizations to become quite large. And I have to even under a shared services model is an internal audit function. And I think that as social enterprises grow and as the volume of economic activity grows in First Nations communities. The application on an individual basis or a shared services basis of a shared services model and a reporting of that share of that function to not only chief and council but to the membership. Do you think there is an interest or value in First Nations. Controlling economic immigration into their communities. To put a finer point on that, that is selecting their own skilled immigrants for expedited work permits, versus relying on vetting by service Canada or our IRCC. Absolutely. Absolutely agree with that concept and I think it goes to the heart of the question about what is the inherent right of First Nations. To sell them. How are we going to share jurisdiction. Do there need to be standards. Absolutely. And when you start looking at our governance model that we are proposing under under it, we're proposing the same kind of concept of establishing some standards that would have to be adhered to as a policy. But I agree that First Nations community should be able to determine who comes in. You know, shortly. You're going to see, and I will send you the link. There is a documentary that's going to come up. That the financial management board is produced that will be aired on APTN. I would encourage all of you to look at it because it speaks to the lack of ability for First Nations to control who comes into the communities. And the diseases that almost wiped out our communities as a result of that. And the economic impact. If you look at the grain and black market economies in our communities that are not benefiting our communities generally, it comes about as a result of our peace and council not being able to control those things. Okay, next question. Will the board be working with indigenous governing bodies if through self determination processes first nations move away from the from Indian Act then governance. Absolutely. I think the ultimate goal in all of this is to allow everyone to move to a self government arrangement. And to be able to demonstrate to themselves and their communities that they have the capacity and they've done the necessary work to allow that to happen. You know, some of you may not be old enough to remember the constitutional votes that took place and the discussions that took place in this country. But the Constitution was not supported in our own communities amendments to the Constitution. And that was because we didn't have confidence in ourselves to manage ourselves. And I think what we're starting to build now is this confidence to do that that's why you've now got almost 300 communities in the country, saying we'll move outside of the Indian Act. Nobody likes the Indian Act, but they know what it is. And there was a hang on this fiduciary duty as being the savior. I think people are now recognizing that will not be the case. So our intention is to support first nation communities in a self government arrangement, and to provide the means where they themselves can share amongst themselves. So one of the things that we've never been able to do a lot of and that is share because we've always found ourselves in a position where we see ourselves is competing for spiritual sources with one another. Okay, a couple of final questions Harold. Someone's taken note of the handout on the first nations infrastructure Institute. Any chance you could provide more details on this work, and whether this is primarily for community infrastructure, or whether it might also include business development infrastructure where the, you know, often those two are related but not always. Well, they're never related as far as the department. Because they're not want to be seeing the subsidizing economic development at the expense of the non indigenous community. The infrastructure Institute is our response to the Department of finances view that government has not been successful in administering the infrastructure program. One, they can't even get the money out the door they tie it up all and so much bureaucracy that they don't get the money out the door. What's happening with infrastructure is that regions are using infrastructure dollars to supplement other programs. So I know, for example, that there may be some transfer of capital dollars to support that support funding. Is that legitimate. I don't know. Our view our definition of infrastructure is not just water roads and sewer for residential housing. It's public development infrastructure for it infrastructure. Our view is that we're going to involve public private partnerships. Many of you will not know but I guess I was on the inaugural board of partnerships British Columbia for seven or eight years. And I see public private partnerships as being a viable option for the president of infrastructure because what's happening at the moment in infrastructure is the money gets funded within one year they built a facility. And then that person clicks and nobody knows how to run the infrastructure. We need to create aggregation through public private partnerships so these infrastructure investments can be protected over the long term. We need to be able to monetize capital transfers in a way that can respond immediately to the kinds of needs that we need. We're working closely with the First Nations Health Authority of British Columbia monetize an inch of their fiscal transfer so that we can build all the nursing stations now, not within the next 10 years. These are the kinds of thinking that have to take place in within government, so that the social needs of our communities can be addressed now. One of the things I learned very early in my career is that we built a gymnasium and slosh that some of you chiefs on my five centered that some of you may have noticed. We built it out the year after we moved into property taxation. The impact it had in our communities was so significant and health elders drug treatment this community gather. We tried for 20 years to raise the money and save the money to build that facility we couldn't do it. We were going to build payers we just couldn't say I think infrastructure in the business community still tied up with this notion that we got to do within 12 months. And we got to expand notion because Canada is afraid everybody is afraid of the cost of bridging the gap. It's 30 to $40 billion. Where's that money going to come from. It's never going to come from transfers of any form. It's going to come through growth in the economy, sharing in the growth in the tax revenues generated from that economy into first nation communities and leveraging capital to the private sector and doing so in a way that looks at a more cost effective way of providing infrastructure. That's what the infrastructure Institute is about. It is not about a political body. We will have regional platforms across the country and I know that's a very good one British Columbia and they're very nervous about an infrastructure. But I think we need a national body to ensure that we've got standards that we've got access to capital, and that we've got a measure that can see fiscal transfers from the federal government to cure ties. Bear with me a moment here. Are there any aspects of indigenous culture that you think may significantly influence the structure of financing as a as an analogy. This person is thinking of Sharia compliant borrowing by Islamic businesses, individuals and communities. And that's actually an appropriate and interesting analogy. I think it's not so much the use of the existing monetary structure, which is what the Shia problem creates for Western world. But I think it's going to be in, in determining what investments are going to be made. What are the ethical investments that are going to be made. You know, much of the investing investment community with the first nation finance authority and securing their almost $1 billion bonds, contramethical investors. And so I think you're going to find that kind of influence being there. I think the other big thing that we have to look at is to this point, we've looked at indigenous economic development is almost like a cottage industry first nation communities. And we're looking at it and what we believe to be the historical context of what our economy was. I think history will show and if you looked at the history, it used to be a trading language called Chinook from here to Mexico. We traded from here to Mexico. We did have international trade. It was on different terms. And I think that we're going to have to get back to that. Those kinds of concepts we need in business free trade zones. As an example, we need to start trading with one another and stop the leakage. Those are the kinds of measures that I think we can take that can support our indigenous community. If you were to look on our website at Pista River in Manitoba, you should really appreciate what they did in terms of stopping leakage and creating these economies of scale. Thank you. And one final question. Can you describe the source of the cash flow that services that debts entered into by first nations? For local governments, the vast majority of debt costs is service with property taxes. How are first nations servicing their debt? First nations are servicing their debt through their own source revenue streams at the moment. But some of that, I call them own source revenue streams, but some of that is gaming revenue. Now, the $100 million that the province of British Columbia is now going to be allocating. Eventually that will find its way into a securitized revenue stream in Ontario. Again, that's part of the case. The second largest community of borrowing members is out of Manitoba. The weakest financially strong group of first nations in the country. But it's because they have Manitoba hydro revenue sharing arrangements. Canada has a role to play and the province of British Columbia has a role to play in providing that kind of stable, securitizable revenue stream to first nations in its reconciliation agenda. Okay. Well, that concludes our question period for today. And I want to thank you, Harold, for an informative and engaging session, including the question and answer. I noticed that the FMB is pulling on a lot of big levers. It's not just helping individuals, communities that's helping on a sort of pan Canadian scale and helping to make the change that's necessary for reconciliation. So there you have it. Another Indigenous institution leading the way in this instance through helping first nations achieve self governance and financial management and so much more. So please allow me to express our collective appreciation. And thank you for sharing your story and providing your insights on opportunities to collaborate in the spirit of reconciliation. Well, thank you, Chris. And thank you for the opportunity. And we would welcome any opportunities to further engage with yourself and others who might find this of interest so that you can understand what is happening at the community level. And in our case, what's happening at the federal level in the areas that we're involved in. And you might even tell us some secrets about what you're doing. Oh, it's all about transparency these days. Okay, well, I think at this point we can turn the presentation back over to Jessica to wind things up. Thank you for your time everyone. Thanks so much to both Harold and Chris. You can see Harold shared his email address there so people do have further questions or want to get in touch with him directly. They can feel free to reach out to him at any time. Thanks so much for sharing that with us. And like I had said at the start of the presentation, if you're looking for that presentation, it is in the handout sections as well as a number of other resources that you can learn more about. I'll work with Harold to connect just to make sure that we can get those extra slides if they're not in that handout today when we post the recording and we can ensure that those slides are included for you to review. And once again, we'll be posting that on gov.economic.com backslash economic development and will that will be under the BC ideas exchange webinar section. And typically it takes us about a week to get up so we'll aim to get it up by mid next week in time for everyone to view this on the holiday Wednesday. So before we go, I just wanted to remind everyone on the call that the province has asked for feedback and input in the building BC's recovery together plan. So the plan for recovery post COVID-19. So you can do that in a number of ways. I'd recommend everyone to visit engage.bc, sorry, engage.gov.bc backslash recovery ideas. And if anyone has any further questions or any information that they'd like to share with us about future webinar topics, I'd recommend that you email us at economicdevelopment.gov.bc.ca. With that, I'm going to close the webinar. We will also be sending out a survey so if anyone has any further feedback that they'd like to share that would be great.