 Good afternoon. I'm really happy to be here to go through my presentation and talk about the work of the First Nations Finance Authority. I really apologize for the technical difficulties we had a few weeks ago. I just wanted to say that it's been a really trying week with the news of the discovery of the mass grave of the 215 First Nations children that was discovered late last week. And also the other event that happened last week was all the racist comments made to Edmonton Oilers' popular Ethan Bear and the Six Knowledge Act. And I understand today was the wrap-up of the inquiry into the death of Joyce Achaquan in Quebec, where she was at the hospital in subsequently passed away. I just wanted to acknowledge that and get right into the presentation. First of all, I originate from the Northwest Territories. I'm a member of the South River First Nation adjacent to the town of Portsmouth, home of Woodbuffalo World Heritage Park, largest free-roaming herd of bison in the world, grazed there and boarded around in the park. And it's also the home of the endangered whooping crane. It's the only place they nest in North America. I'm pretty sure it's all over the world. So a very interesting place where I grew up, very small place, a small community. Isolated for a period of time until we had a full service road. So always really honored to say where I came from. And I'm actually talking to you today from the West Bank First Nation Reserve, the Okanagan Indian Event. So yeah, I'll get right into this. And just really a quick overview of FNFA and who we are. We were established in 2005 through an act in parliament that received all party support and received royal assistance in 2005. The whole idea of the act was to promote internal capacity development as well as gain access to the capital markets. So that First Nations governments can, sorry, I just have to move my camera because it's part of it's on the screen. So yeah, so there were three institutions that were part of the act. There was actually four at the start. So the three that survived are the First Nations Financial Management Board, the First Nations Tax Commission and the First Nations Finance Authority. There was a First Nations statistical institute that later got eliminated. And for reasons that we're not sure, but we were looking to resurrect that element of gathering stats and information, which is really key to the work that we're doing. So the three institutions work together to look at integrity of the overall fiscal regime, in particular, the work that we do, the FNFA, because as I will show you later on, we do operate in a pool of borrowing structure. And a really significant piece that was later added to the act was a regulation called finance secured by other revenues regulation. That happened in 2011. And this allowed all First Nations to leverage all revenues other than property tax. The initial act that came into force in 2005 primarily dealt with property taxing First Nations. So that was very limited to the number of First Nations that actually do this. So this gave access to all the First Nations across Canada to really share their, to use their own set of source revenues to gain access to financing. And we primarily deal with a lot of provincial revenues from different types of arrangements that are in place right now with the different provinces. So our mandate is to provide First Nations with access to the same capital market opportunities that other level of governments currently have. So up until this act came into force, First Nations governments were the only governments in Canada that still went to the commercial banks for financing. So that we operate two types of loan programs. One is a short-term loan program, which is below bank crime. It will always be below bank crime. And this is primarily for First Nations that are doing infrastructure projects that need financing until the project is completed. And also when we're in between our debenture, issuing our debentures, our bonds, which I will explain a bit later, in the long-term program. So this is fixed rate financing up to, we can do fixed rate financing up to three years. The current rate right now, the estimated rate today is 2.75%. Rates have gone up in the last little while, as I'll talk about in the next few slides. We also do investment in capital advisory services. So we work with the First Nations to look at restructuring their debt. And also for those First Nations that have cash on hand, either through trust arrangements and other types of idle cash, we do have an investment in bio-reservices. So our governance model is fairly unique compared to the other institutions that operate under the Act. The other institutions are a shared governance model, where some organization appoints a minimum amount of board members. And the governor and council government appoints the majority. In our case, we're governed and known by our membership. This is the First Nations that become board members with us. And you have to be a chief or counselor to become a board member with FNFA. We do annual elections just to ensure that there's, we do have a mix of board members that just to ensure that there's more integrity in the system. Of the three, there's 300. One of the first steps to become a board member is you have to, it's a volunteer, first of all, I should say it's a voluntary act. So First Nations are not forced to get into this. They come into this with their eyes wide open. They want to join and work under the Act. And so of the 634 First Nations, 314 have requested schedule and are scheduled under the Act. And of that, 122 have completed the membership steps to become a boring member. And this is, this growth is continuing, where I was adding new board members each month. Just to put it in a different perspective, one of the steps to, the most important step to become a boring member is to work with the First Nations Financial Management Board. And in that process, First Nations have to adopt financial administration love based on a certain level of standard. It's pretty similar to municipalities. And then they also need to have their financial performance reviewed. We look at the last five years of audit the financial statements and, and they are assessed against certain financial ratios. And if they pass that their award of financial performance certificate, and that enables them to knock on our door. And so it's a rigorous process. And it does take First Nations some time to get to the process. Some things we're in control of, some things we're not like requesting the scheduling. That's usually done through a request to a by BCR to the Minister of CERNAC, Minister Bennett. And that process can, it's not, we don't know sometimes how long that takes. But as I mentioned, we can advertise loans up to 30 years doing fixed rate, fixed interest rate financing. And one of the other unique elements of our model is we don't charge any loan fees or application fees to our members. We don't generally take collateral on any assets. We're not bonus. I don't get a bonus or any of our staff. We don't have any commissions because we're a not-for-profit model. And so we're not working to try to get loans out the door because that could have a sort of a negative effect on the borrowing pool. As I'll mention later, this is a really interesting slide. This shows our progression to really where we are today. And as I mentioned, we received oral assent, the Act got passed in Parliament, and the other revenues regulation came into force in 2011. And from that, that was a major turning point was getting this other revenues regulation in place. So in 2014, after we really started getting First Nations certified and through the door, we issued our first event share. And that was in 2014. It was $90 million. And the interest rate at that time was 3.79%. Which was a very good rate at that time. And our initial credit rating was an A3. It was an A3 stable plus with Moody's and a A minus stable with standard imports. So pretty good credit rating for a new issuer. And we were slaughtered in a municipal index. Shortly after that, a few years later, we actually got a credit rating upgrade went to an A2 stable with Moody's from A3. And an A plus stable with standard imports. That was actually a big jump. That was two notches. So it was very good for us. So really why we got that increase in the rating was that the investors that we had talked to and educated about the Act and all the services we do really accepted our credit story. And we actually had international investors other than Canada and US into Europe and then in the Middle East. So our credit story was well accepted amongst investors. In 2018, we were nominated and awarded the Governor-General Award for Innovation in Finance. This was actually really good for us to receive because we weren't nominated. It was nominated by one of the banking people that we work with put it forward. And because our financing model was so new and it was actually very innovative at the time because there's no other type of First Nations financed authority that exists for indigenous people anywhere else in the world. It's just here in Canada. And fast forward to 2020. We issued from issuing our first debenture in 2014. So that's six years. We issued our eighth debenture just last year. So it was quite an increase in the work that we had did. And you can see at the same time last year, this was just when COVID was happening, we had another upgrade to our rating with Moody's Investors to an 883, so a double A rating, which was a two-notch increase, which was really good. So we had two rating upgrades since 2014. And you can look at our interest rate at the time, it was 1.9%. And it was our biggest debenture to date of $354 million. So today, as I'm speaking you today, we've reached $1.5 billion. So quite an accomplishment from the $90 million that we issued back in 2014. This is just another look at how the loans were distributed across Canada. I highlighted BC because I think most of the audience there is from BC. And the fact that the act primarily started with BC First Nations, as I mentioned that the act started with property taxing First Nations and most of them were in BC. So when we look at the distribution across Canada, if you would have looked at this in 2014, it would have been a lot of zeros in some of the other provinces. So we pretty well have all the provinces and territories participating that you don't see anything for the Yukon because the way the act is structured, the eligible First Nation that can become a member are Indian Act First Nations. So in the Yukon, the majority of the First Nations there are self-governing. And I'll talk about that a bit later. So when we look at the total loans and how that translates into jobs that are created, it's just over 16,000, almost 17,000 jobs created. This is using a Stats Canada's employment multiplier formula. And we try to measure the economic impact, which is about just over $3 billion. So it's pretty significant for this amount of loans that I've gone up to when you look at the 76 First Nations that have acquired along with us. So you can just imagine if we're at 124 members now. I updated this the other day. So if all 124 were borrowing, the numbers would almost double. And if all the 314 that are scheduled, well, you can imagine what the economic impact and the jobs that have been created from First Nations acquire in financing through us. So this is just another way to look at the impact that First Nations and First Nations are making to the economy in Canada, in particular the different provinces. So if I look at BC, there's well over 2,000 jobs created and the economic impact is about $452 million. So it's significant. So what kind of projects do we lend for? Well, other than the strict requirements and their property tax revenues, First Nations can really do a wide selection of projects from economic development to social development and equity involvement into various projects, for example, power green energy projects. They can do land purchases, infrastructure, and rolling stock via closing equipment. So it's pretty wide open. If it doesn't fit under economic development or social development, I'd be surprised. So yeah, so it's wide open. And one of the other elements of our model is that the First Nations revenues determine its foreign capacity. So the other revenues regulation that I talked about identifies the certain types of eligible revenues that can be leveraged for financing. And there's a list of them there. There's anything from contract revenues, business revenues, royalties, and transfer some other government, any kind of power project revenues. So this is another way to kind of look at this is I'm sure a lot of you have a mortgage with your house. And that mortgage was really the amount that you could borrow was really determined by your salary. So this is in a sense the same type of parallel with the First Nations in terms of their own source revenue. So this I have to say this is their own source revenue that they that they generate from the different arrangements. There's a number of safeguards in place. And this is really used to keep the integrity of the borrowing pool, which I'll talk about in a few slides. As I mentioned, the First Nations Financial Management Board, their certification process is really key to this. This really ensures that all the First Nations are on the same level playing field. So they adopt the financial administration law, and they need all the financial ratios. And the other thing is that we don't really work in a vacuum. We work with the capital markets. This is all the financial arms of the all the banks in Canada work with us. We work with them in the beginning to look at the different leverage factors for each revenue stream. So not all revenue streams are equal in the sense of how much they can leverage into financing. We establish a few reserve funds. This is all under the Act. So for every loan that a First Nation borrows from us, they need to either contribute 5% of that or borrow additional 5%. And that goes into a debt reserve fund, the DRF. And so that 5% sits there until the loan is actually repaid. And the whole purpose of that is to, if there's ever a problem with a revenue stream or revenue streams, we can dip into the debt reserve fund to bring it up to current and out of default. So that's really important. And where we're sitting now is about $60 million in this debt reserve fund. And also there's a credit enhancement fund called the CEF. So this credit enhancement fund is established with the funding from Government of Canada. Because being a new issuer, we needed some type of equity going into the capital markets and getting the credit rating that we got. So Canada has funded $42 million, I believe, so far to date, which is pretty good. So a combination of the debt reserve fund and the CEF is well over $100 million, which is really the sweet spot where we want to be. And I mentioned that our board was made up of the borrowing members, which are elected annually. So the borrowing members approve each other's loan requests, and they also approve who can become a member. So they kind of self-police each other just to ensure the integrity of the borrowing pool. And another unique safeguard that we have in place is called the trust account system. This ensures that the loan payments are paid. Another name is called lockbox. So what this system does is with an agreement with the First Nation and a trust company, in this case we use computer share, we agree for the term of the loan that revenue sources that are used to back loans are intercepted. So it's intercepted before it goes to the First Nation. So if there's a revenue coming from, say, an independent energy project, like a green energy project, like a high drill or wind, or there's usually long-term contracts with those, it gets intercepted, the payments get intercepted before it goes to the First Nation. And then the loan payments are made first in any balance with respect to the First Nation. So well, how do we access the capital market? And as I mentioned, we have two independent credit ratings from worldwide credit rating agencies. Moody's, in our case, and S&P provide the two rating trusts. And I mentioned earlier that we have a AA3 with Moody's and an A+, with S&P. And those are really, really good ratings. Now, here is how the debenture process works and how the borrowing pool works. So with our credit rating, which is based on the First Nation's own source revenues, all the safeguards we have in the structure of the react and our management that's in place. But that credit rating, First Nation, we can go to the capital markets and to borrow the money that First Nations are requesting. So we normally, in all cases, First Nations make the only request to us, they either borrow through our interim financing program. And when we get to a certain dollar amount, we actually go to the capital markets. So the borrowing pool is made up of all the First Nations loans. So in our case, excuse me, we wait until we get to at least $150 to $200 million in loan requests before we actually go to the capital markets and get investors to buy our bond. So we do that because it puts us in a different category of investors. That translates into better rates for our members. So once we have this together, our board approves this debenture, the First Nations Finance Authority debenture for whatever dollar amount is. For instance, the last one we had was $354 million. We work with the banking syndicate. As I mentioned earlier, it's made up of all the financial arms of all the major banks across Canada, plus two smaller ones, Cazgreen and Laurentian in this case. And the reason why we do that, it just really keeps the bigger guys honest because they can gang up on us and we end up with a high rate for our members. But the smaller ones actually keep that in check. And so up until a few years ago, we took the risk of selling this. But now since we've actually reached a certain size and our credit story is accepted worldwide, they actually take the risk now and sell this to investors. So once we issue our bond, we know that it's sold and generally sells for really favorable terms for ourselves. And it's usually sold to institutional investors, pension plans, life insurance companies, mutual funds, other governments. For instance, the government of BC makes an investment. They were one of the first investors that bought our first venture and they continue to do that as we issue, which is really good. So this is a snapshot of how the whole system works and how we get the money. This is another way of looking at when we're talking to investors because there's a lot of issues now with the ESG bonds and the dissident environmental aspects of type of projects that we're financing. We generally like to mention that we're investing into a lot of social values. So being that we're not for profit organization, which really leads to sustainable indigenous development. And the whole mission is to helping First Nations communities build their own futures on their own terms. So this is really important because First Nations don't have to rush into this. They can take their time on how they're doing this. And they actually, as they need to financing to address their community priorities, they do it on their own times. And it's based on the values of empowerment, leadership and integrity. And so you can look at all the different types of infrastructure projects we finance from community facilities to sustainable power, local business and a lot of public infrastructure in the communities and also housing and other aspects. So just looking at the measurable impacts, as I mentioned, is pretty close to $17,000 jobs, $17,000 jobs, sorry, giving ahead of myself $33.2 billion in the economic impact. And this is all underpinned by the awards and the recognition that we get for really the successful model that we work with under the First Nations Fiscal Management Act. I want to switch a bit now and talk about a few projects. And I'm not too sure how many have heard about this one. So this one is, there were seven MiCMAC communities that formed a coalition in the Atlantic to buy 50% of clear water seafoods. And this they done in partnership with premium brands, what is based in BC. Resulting in now the coalition, another aspect of this deal was the First Nations having ownership of all the outstanding lobster fishing licenses, which was really an important part of this deal. And this is the element of the deal that the First Nations Finance Authority financed for $250 million, spread amongst the seven communities. They now own all the lobster fishing licenses, which was owned by clear water seafoods before. So what this means is that there's a lot of jobs for indigenous fisher people and it creates other private business ownership and small business. So the $1 billion deal is structured in such a way that premium brands has financed the remainder of the deal under a supported data agreement. So what this means is that the premium brands has financed the seven communities equity stake in this partnership and that will become due in a few years. And I'm sure that they'll refinance with us. But this was a real groundbreaking deal for indigenous people to work as a group to take a major interest in such a, I guess, a large company that's, I know it's a largest seafood company in North America. And so it was really, it received a lot of press and a lot of attention and rightly so because this has now developed a path through the FNFA for groups of First Nations to participate really in similar types of investments. And we've been ever since then we've been inundated with a number of projects that would include groups of First Nations to look at getting into. So I'll talk about another one in a second. But what was really important and made this deal successful was the executive team, our executive team was able to discuss in advance with the lending syndicate on how this deal would be structured. And also all the First Nations leadership staff and their professionals had the skills to execute a transaction that's pretty complex. And really this was really one of the key ingredients to this successful acquisition. It is really important and it's sometimes in a lot of cases missing in our First Nations community is the capacity required to look at so complex deals and opportunities. So if there's anything that could happen in the future for the positive is First Nations to get this type of capacity in place as they need. And also it required all the First Nations to become a boring member which made it really easy and to spread the risk which is always really important in terms of a pool boring model. And this is I'm going to move a bit to BC now focus on BC. I'm sure that a lot of you are aware of the coastal gas link pipeline that the TC Energy is currently working on and constructing. So back a few years ago TC Energy made an offer to 20 First Nations in BC to acquire a 10% equity in the coastal gas pipeline. It was actually more it was 10 it was 20% but the First Nations couldn't meet the timelines. So we this this this is a really unique project because it's in the best interest of the BC government to get this project up and running for a number of reasons purely economical and really to get our our gas to the other markets international markets. So we we actually started discussions with the BC government TC Energy and the major projects coalition. This is it's a First Nations major projects coalition that really tries to be that capacity that's needed in the communities to look at these type of opportunities on behalf of First Nations. So a majority of the 20 are working under the major projects coalition and there's I think six or eight that are working independently and to TC Energy. So we've had discussions with them and it became pretty evident that FNFA is seen as the best financing opportunity for these nations to become owners of this project just being that our rates are very low compared to any other ones that that they could actually get. Matter of fact I know they went out and they had upwards to 50 offers potential offers on financing if they even could get it and there was really one or two that came through that would would consider providing financing and those were around 10% interest rates which made the project really not feasible compared to our rate our current rate today of 2.75 it's it's a huge difference in the intergame change your first nations when it comes to getting revenue from a project through equity ownership. So the financing is expected to be completed once the construction is completed in about three years so we're working right now with all the all the 21st nations and seeing if we can actually have everything in place beforehand and we can just move forward with that. So really exciting project for those 21st nations in DC. This is just a recent excuse me this was this project was just recently announced a few weeks ago last month actually and it was a book it took some time to get it up and running and it's it's it's the first housing project with BC housing that's going to be situated on reserve and it's going to be 23 town houses with the combination one two or three bedrooms and in a common building so yeah so this this actually is is a groundbreaking project because it does pave the road for other first nations to work with BC housing or similar type of projects during some of the work that they were looking at for the land that was that the Acton First Nation was going to donate towards the project they discovered the environmentally protected it was a it was a it was a these Oregon forest nails which is a picture on the screen that's where they were habitat and so as a result of that it was identified and so they made it into a protected area which is which is very good so this this is really exciting project and it really puts First Nations in a better position to be involved in the designing and the housing and all the different landscape and how how the the project will be built and what requirements will all be in place so the the financing concept is there's a number of funders involved in this so the the Acton First Nation did receive funding from CMHC Indigenous Services Canada and they contributed some of their own they invested in the professionals of the engineering general contractors finance of forecasters of project management and they also contributed the land and dollars towards a total of five million dollar investment in this project so as I mentioned the ISP provided infrastructure funding CMHC and BC housing one-time grants and BC housing will provide rent subsidies like they do with a lot of their projects in BC for the term end of the mortgage so we we are actually going to be financing the five million dollar remaining balance which is a remaining balance in this project and so that's that was all completed the a few weeks ago and the construction is expected to start in the in the fall of this year and the agreement was signed with BC housing so really new and ground breaking project and should bode well for all First Nations and BC that want to do something similar so since really the success of the Clearwater project we as I mentioned we've been inundated with a lot of different requests and it's it's not only from the Clearwater but really the success that FNFA has been having and so a lot of First Nations and Tribal Councils are looking to form partnerships similar to the Clearwater projects corporate entities are looking to sell some of their existing businesses or parts of their existing businesses and they're looking for an opportunity for First Nations to partner and and to acquiring equity and also can consultants are trying to understand us our process and governments as well are are really looking into how we're operating and as our success is not but it's not it's not going unnoticed and so those are the main reasons why and so we are constantly dealing with this we we've actually added more capacity to our staff we heard seven people in the last eight months or so so really trying to keep up with all the different requests that are coming in so as I mentioned there are more reasons why that we're we're getting a lot of these requests and at the bottom there of the slide you can see that the Clearwater project really provided a lot of attention for a lot of groups looking to do similar types of arrangements and First Nations are really looking to share risk as opportunities to that for opportunities under traditional territories and also you know just the fact that the FNFA is really being seen now as the benchmark for financing for First Nations because our rates are very very very low and very competitive and so I think that you know First Nations industry are really in businesses in general are looking to capitalize on that so yeah some of the other things we're working on and this is to really again I you know I mentioned the the other revenues regulation that came into force in 2011 the act has regulation making powers to include other borrowing members including self government self governing First Nations and the BC Treaty First Nations so we're expecting section 141 regulation to be completed later this year and hopefully come into force either by the end of the year or early next year and so this really opens it up to a number of I think there's 26 or so self governing First Nations in Canada right now and because at the current time they really don't have any place to go and access financing and so this it's really important that we we actually complete this and get them to be eligible members and one of the other parts of what section 141 of the act is to expand our membership again to other First Nations not-for-profit organizations for example health centers education authorities water authorities and health authorities but right now a lot of these institutions really need access to capital for infrastructure and other needs that they have and there's really a place for them to go I just want to switch again here to talking about UNDRIP as a federal government the provinces are looking at implementing UNDRIP in their different ways they're they're looking at action plans to how each province or the federal government will implement UNDRIP and one of the things it's for us is to really build on our successes and not try to reinvent the wheel for instance if there's a another type of FNFA that comes on well it's just going to really dilute the market and you just won't be able to get the same type of rates for and terms for our members so that's that's really important for these governments to know and to ensure that there's access by self-governing indigenous groups because the whole purpose of UNDRIP is to move First Nations into more of a where they're self-governing and looking after their own government activities so we've just got to continue to make sure that we're evolving in the same direction the same way and also to secure do revenue sharing agreements benefit agreements across all the provinces because one of the articles under UNDRIP is that the senior the state governments is recommended to share different revenues because you know 80 percent of the revenues that First Nations the First Nations that are borrowing from us right now are utilizing our revenue sharing agreements with provinces mainly provinces very few from the federal government but it's but it actually does help so in BC for for example the a few years ago the BC government announced revenue sharing arrangement to to gaming where the new set the provinces involved in and it was a 20-year agreement sharing about two billion dollars and so if you look at what you can leverage to that with two billion dollars that's about 18 billion dollars and you know just thinking again about the impact to the economy BC benefits a lot from this by by doing this so yeah for the two billion that they are sharing the impact to the BC economy is probably 10 times that and also really to maximize the benefits of pooling because there's no First Nations that can actually go to the capital markets on their own they're just not big enough to do that on a regular basis to garner any preferential interest rates and and to also to get the government's a look at considering purchasing our our boss so I just want to move now to some photos this is the renderings of the BC housing project so this is in the Piyak in First Nation in in Kamloop I mean Chilohax or get Kamloops on the brain this is a Taka River Tinkland and the northern BC this this project was done a few years ago was a what's unique about this this project is that Taka River is totally off the grid so they were able to convince BC Hydro to allow them to build this this dam forget how many megawatts it is but to replace the diesel generators that were in the communities that were really not environmentally friendly so so they're able to do this with the with that the contract with BC Hydro and now they're looking at expanding this this this Hydro and Hydro project and selling some of their power to the Yukon government so it's it's on a smaller scale but you can see that the opportunities for expansion will will really help them generate additional revenues this is in Manitoba First Nation for a long clean First Nation built underlands a micro hotel hotel that opened in 2019 and what's really unique about this is that the long clean is located near Portage La Prairie rated adjacent to it and by having this hotel built so close to Portage La Prairie it enabled Portage La Prairie to really expand their capacity the whole event like Scotty's and Tim Horton's briars for those curlers out there but so we increased the number of bedrooms that were available to host events and so we put them on that that that playing field which was what I thought it was a really good thing it's a great partnership between the the community and the First Nation and this is a large project wind farm project in Ontario the hand be held at First Nation became a 50 owner in this major project it's a 300 megawatt wind farm as 87 turbines the largest in the world and it actually resulted in 90 kilometers of transmission 80 kilometers of networks of roads to electrical substations and it it powers over 100,000 homes in Ontario with clean energy so that concludes my presentation I'm going to show you a short video so I'll just turn over or I'll ask Chris to show a video that we recently launched just last week so Chris I'll just turn it back to you Chris I don't know if we can hear the sound and will generate revenue for the community and its members for generations to come these loans help communities build a necessary infrastructure that's really required in their communities also enables them to really build on their economic development as the CEO of the Bayside Development Corporation on the Buckingham agmon nation Rose Paul is determined to help rebuild the economy in her community she keeps a letter from a federal Indian agent sent back from 1963 warning the First Nation that no commercial activity would be permitted near the provincial highway that cut their territory into aside from making baskets I keep that letter very near here to me just to keep my fire lit that fire has inspired Rose and her community to build the Bayside Travel Center along the new highway interchange of Buckingham with the support of an FNFA loan it includes facilities for gaming a service station a convenient store restaurants and even a tourism center I've been telling other people that never give up never give up on their economic development goals in their First Nation or any community development goal where it be housed in their infrastructure capital projects it could be done it's doable and it's doable with the help of the First Nation Finance Authority for number two and the other members of the Nygma Coalition it means that future generations will always have jobs that Chief Paul says will range from a deckhand to a CEO and a major state in a global company we are owners and we are participants and FNFA truly has brought us it is run by indigenous people so that's a plus in my mind FNFA loans have financed infrastructure which have now created over 14 000 jobs and have contributed almost three billion dollars in economic activity for our members accessing capital knocks down barriers and is a critical step towards self-determination and exercising our rights I see a great partnership I see First Nations taking a rightful place in this economy and actually being a major contributor to the economy there remains a 30 billion dollar infrastructure gap between First Nations and the rest of Canada and an urgent need to build more housing schools health and water treatment facilities and other economic development projects from the bottom of my heart in my communities we thank you for working with us on this to see a long-time vision finally come through thank you First Nations Finance Authority our success is due to the First Nations governments who take the necessary step to join us we have an incredibly talented team and we look forward to hearing from you so contact us today we are the First Nations Finance Authority and we are four First Nations by First Nations and we are stronger together. Go ahead. Sorry Chris I can't hear uh I can't hear you very well. No this mistake. Okay delicate. I had to swing down my microphone. So question then is the number of First Nations participating in the finance authority grows so what's the number of ideas as to what the money could be used for? How does the finance authority go about managing this and the potential that it could increase risk in the boring pool? Well that's a really good question so uh so there's a potential of 600 plus First Nations becoming involved in this and if we actually increase the membership to include other not-for-profit corporations that number can really increase significantly uh so well one of the things is there's a number of safeguards we have in our system and and and one is that we don't land on with the hope of a project generating revenue. First Nations need to have existing revenues in place to secure a loan for a project that doesn't mean that the revenue that they can generate from say clear water doesn't become an eligible for increasing their borrowing power later on. So that's one thing and the other is that we use in our financing model First Nations are required to repay their debts based on a certain ratio so depending on the revenue stream in some cases they have to pay uh if it's a government source revenue they pay about 1.25 percent to us and we we end up keep we end up just using the amount that's due to us but the remainder goes back to them within a certain timeframe and so for individual businesses that are are banned on businesses like your gas store in your corner store and those type of things business revenues we collect 1.75 percent so this is in case there's ever a problem we do have some margin to to service a debt and the in the other the other thing is the more First Nations that join the greater they will spread the risk so it's it's it's it's a positive we actually want more to to join and the other the other thing is that it does once once is more joining and we're and we're accessing the capital markets more often it's going to lead to a better rating in our in our credit rating our goal is to get to a triple a rating we're at the double a rate now by getting to a triple a we we will reduce the the financing costs of First Nation so that so the debt coverage ratios are depending on the different revenue stream and the other thing is the intercept mechanism of intercepting the revenue and the debt reserve funds that we have in place really reduce the risk we haven't had any any First Nation default on a loan or with late payments to date and it's really it's it's actually really really good that that we haven't had that because the minute we do then you know that really can identify a potential problem but no plus we we're we're continually adding on the capacity we need to to ensure we're doing the the due diligence that's required to look at each and every loan it's it's the the source in the dependability of the revenue stream which is really important to us plus being certified through the financial management board and having the financial administration really does lessen the risk so long-winded answer but there are many elements to how we address risk I think that's a function of your depth of experience and knowledge Greg do you have questions from the audience at this point yes Chris we do we actually have a question from Ricardo Toledo and Ricardo's request Ernie is if you could speak more about leverage ratios for revenue sharing agreements and are there are there some revenue sharing agreements viewed more favorably by capital markets and what are some of the factors that are considered yeah another another good question so revenue streams through revenue sharing agreements that come from the provinces and Canada are pretty safe safe bet that the province or or Canada will will honor these agreements like the BC gaming one for instance so those have high leverage factors so which is about 12 times 12 to 14 times what that is and independent power projects generally come with a 20 year 25 year 30 year in some cases 40 year contract so the longer the duration of the contract the less risk there is and in those cases the the leverage factor is about 1.6 sorry yeah so it's about it's a little less than what you can leverage from the federal government and of course if you start to go down to some of the like contracts contracts sometimes are 10 years or if they're 20 years well then they're pretty solid in some cases but the way we look at it is that it's a lot more riskier than the federal government and provincial governments in terms of revenue revenue revenue sharing agreements so obviously some provinces are better off than some other ones but they will we the capital markets are pretty confident that provinces are going to live up to their obligations and in these revenue sharing agreements I have to mention that with the budget that was recently announced by Canada the they're going through the budget implementation bill right now and in there they made available two other revenue sources that First Nations have that weren't eligible for financing through the FNFA before and one is the there's a number of First Nations that have arrangements to share First Nations goods and services tax and so that that is part of the budget bill so those would be considered a high leverage factor and and these were these were actually developed in conjunction with the capital markets so the banking syndicate that we worked with that's that's how we came up with these different manufacturers. Ernie we have a follow-on question from Larry Olson and Larry's asking how do you manage debt to equity ratios when financing and acquisition without access to the equity capital usually required to keep balance sheets as you said in balance and what are the ways in which you work with these deals in terms of being the leveraging and whether or not you know there's concerns about being over leveraged. Well a really good question I'll answer the last part of it first is that based on the First Nations own source revenue that really determines their borrowing capacity and we as a rule our board has mandated us to not lend more than 75 percent of that that available borrowing capacity so we don't want the First Nations to over borrow and so the the other part of the discussion is so our debt our debt equity is a function of the debt reserve fund that we have in place where the First Nations pay five percent of of their loan into a debt reserve fund until the loan is paid off and the credit enhancement fund that in conjunction with the available own source revenues that the First Nations are pledging towards the loan really make up the the equity so as I mentioned we do have over a hundred million dollars right now in the two reserve funds and those can be used when there's a impairment to a revenue stream on behalf of a First Nation and again we do we do work with the banking syndicate that reviews this information as well and the credit the credit rating agencies look at this in terms of to make sure that we do have the required amount of debt equity in place so those are really important for us so maintaining the integrity of the blurring cool to make sure that revenue streams are maintaining themselves in terms of being able to service that is really important because we don't want to trigger any accessing of the debt reserve fund because that does usually signal a problem and so we don't generally lend to a First Nation with a single revenue source we usually have a multiple revenue streams that in case one does have a problem then we can always have access to that and we do have the ability to intervene if there's an issue like that the our sister organization the financial management board one of its mandate is to act as an intervener to act in the place of the chief and council in terms of getting the the treasury function that is to get the revenue stream back in order or put another revenue stream in place. Ernie thank you very much and both thanks to our colleagues with these questions Ernie I actually have a question and I've been following the FNFA for quite a few years now and I'm really quite curious about the FNA's role as a stream bearer for First Nations access to commercial capital and of course we've seen especially with the the recent clearwater deal that there's a much bigger awareness of FNFA and of basically the bankability of First Nations economic interests. I wonder if you could actually you know maybe discuss how this is really changing the perceptions of First Nations and from an investment interest. Really that's a really good question. Yeah so again you know I mentioned in the PowerPoint when I was talking a bit about UNDRIP about other governments provincial governments purchasing our debt and but right now we're in a municipal index and most of the investors there are institutional investors so that from an investment point of view like we are creating opportunities for First Nations to invest some of their idle cash their trust money through a mechanism that we're setting up but we worked I don't know if you're aware of the BC the municipal finance authority of BC is really the model that we're structured on but we did work with them at and still are today in terms of creating an investment environment I'm sorry if you could repeat the first part of that I missed the first part of the question I got it to answering this one it's great it's much appreciated it's I mean really that the FNFA has been a stream bearer in so many different ways for First Nations to access commercial capital and I'm just curious now that you're seeing what it really been like the broader impacts of that especially in terms of you know as First Nation leadership will come and speak to you about the other financial and investment interests that are now directly coming to them well that's a yeah I think that you know it's by having access to capital at these really good terms interest rates and term to the to the First Nations finance authority really puts the First Nation in a better position to negotiate to be a better well a contributing partner of equal value and it actually really paves the way for other types of business arrangement similar to the cure water available to all First Nations across the country for example I I mentioned the coastal gas link opportunity but we are we are working with a number of First Nations in Manitoba right now that one that are looking at taking an equity interest in I think it goes to Winnipeg I guess and in the in the in the Atlantic Canada these other groups of First Nations looking at acquiring an interest in other another another industry kind of related to actually the complete opposite of Fisheries but more into into acquiring a casino which is all the different there all the provinces have different ways of how they do gaming and in the Atlantic each each First Nation can host a casino and have their own gaming commission where in BC it's all under the BC government but yeah so we're seeing a number of those types of projects coming forward so what's what is good so what it means is that First Nations can pursue larger types of projects as well as look at their own needs and their own priorities in their in their in their communities to do the infrastructure because there's much needed infrastructure that needs to be done so yeah so it really translates into creating jobs and really having a positive impact on the economy there was a there was a study of the Manitoba done a few years ago where they looked at the all the revenue that's generated from First Nations in that provinces and and how much contributions the government made to social cost and it it was it was actually really an eye-opener and that First Nations are net contributors to the economy not net takers so so that was positive so this only just increases that and hopefully it's going to lead to really where First Nations are managing wealth as opposed to managing government funding projects which is really keeping them more or less in poverty so managing wealth compared to managing poverty it's it's it's it it does create that really opportunity for for growth and for being able to manage their own their own wealth yeah so I think it's all a positive all around Bernie thanks once again I actually have another question coming from Ricardo and you know as you've spoken about capacity in First Nations and communities are you know becoming more involved in these complex deals and executing transactions how can the provinces especially the province of British Columbia basically meet the communities at this emerging and sort of growing level of capacity when you think you know the larger issue of sort of especially with the relationship between the province and the First Nations in terms of actually how they often structure revenue sharing agreements or other sort of modalities really good question because really the one of the key ingredients to the continued success is the capacity we we are aware that you know some smaller communities and there's there's a lot in BC there's 200 First Nations in BC some of them have really small populations are not going to have the capacity to look at deals of this this complexity and the magnitude of the size of some of them are well beyond what they're capable of doing I think you know having I guess maybe organizations like a major projects coalition but you know in other fields available to assist communities with expertise well it's going to be really valuable looking into the future and also our sister organization called the First Nations Financial Management Board is looking at a shared services model where there'll be they'll have access to the expertise on hand to assist those smaller communities when they're looking at certain ventures and even on reporting the results their financial reporting and other types of reporting that's required to provide that level of service to them as well so really the DC government can help possibly by making those those resources available to either funding funding funding certain organizations or groups that are known to provide this type of services and and also to really continue supporting First Nations with the with the resources of the government for example like you know there's a there's a big finance department in the in the British Columbia government that probably has some expertise in dealing with the capital markets in other areas and that could really help First Nations in looking at these types types of things and you know I'm sure there's a lot of engineers and a lot of other experts that are employed by the DC government and that if those can be made available or really to support institutions other institutions to assist First Nations we are actually looking at incorporating another institute as a part of the First Nations Physical Management Act called First Nations Infrastructure Institute which will do just that. I think Jason Callow was on previously talking about the work of the First Nations Infrastructure Institute and that's the primary purpose that they would undertake is to help those First Nations as they're going through infrastructure projects and so yeah so that's that's that's what I see it's really you know a hand up rather than a hand out in helping First Nations and until we get our own expertise that's available to us in our community so really thank you for that question that's a really important question. Ernie thank you very much I think there's a really important story about the FNFA and how you know does it now it's a quality of service provider for the FNFA and it's also for the consideration of all these loans. Could you talk a little bit about how your work the work of the FNFA has actually started to create this broader ecology of service providers that are actually I'm sure there's going to have even more multiplier effect to the economy in general. Yeah so again that's really related to the capacity side that really needs to be developed like you know I look at the FNFA itself we're unique there's no other FNFA that exists anywhere else in the world and you know there are reasons for that but from the other countries but so what what what that really means is for us is that all the people that we've hired we've had they they they become the experts right and so we got to make sure that we're continually adding you know bright young people that can actually gain the knowledge that's required to run an FNFA and also we need to ensure that we have succession planning in place which we do in terms of how we operate and so it's kind of like that and to really compensate people well make sure that they're staying with the FNFA they're growing with the FNFA and so that's in the so that as equally as as important to our communities is to to have consistent the capacity in place so that the individuals can actually learn from and grow within the organizations for the experts that they need because it and being able to fairly compensate in making sure making sure that that that there's opportunities for others to move up and and within our organization and the other institutions and the first nations so so that's what that's our plan right now that's what the FNFA is doing and with where we we actually are hiring younger brighter individuals and where we're providing the opportunities for them to grow within the organizations and we're really invested into our succession planning because we know that's important it's a skill but it's really needs to be continually passed on to all the employees that come with us and make make opportunities for them to and you know hopefully when I'm retired that we have the the right people to step into my position once once I'm gone and in the having knowledge of the financial markets and how all of that deals how how do you deal with investors the rating agencies the banking syndicate and those are really important and on the other hand we we have to deal with the the different levels of government especially the federal government when they're talking about amendments to our act and having that aspect behind of that legal aspect and really having skills of an economist on our staff to to look at how we're doing research well how we're in how we're contributing to policy development within Canada and the different provinces it is really important so yeah I think it's a great question and the capacity is a part of our rating from the different rating agencies one third of our the element of our credit rating is based on management and our ability to manage the the growth and to ensure that we're we're really doing the proper due diligence and monitoring to ensure that the First Nations like in a so are not going to run into problems or if they are we're identifying them earlier so we can do something about it so it's it's all a big part of this the success that we're that we're experiencing right now it's the capacity is this is important as all the other elements thank you Ernie I think we've worked our way through all the questions now so time to wind up our session please allow me to express to you are a collective appreciation for for sharing the amazing success story of the First Nations finance authority and your insights on opportunities to collaborate on economic reconciliation it's been a really interesting session great afternoon also thanks to the audience for your interest and great questions that concludes our webinar for today thank you yeah you're more than welcome thank you and we'll see you all next time bye for now