Proceedings of the Standing Senate Committee on
Aboriginal Peoples
Issue 4 - Evidence - March 5, 2014
OTTAWA, Wednesday, March 5, 2014
The Standing Senate Committee on Aboriginal Peoples met this day at 6:49 p.m. to study the challenges relating to First Nations infrastructure on reserves; and for the consideration of a draft budget.
Senator Dennis Glen Patterson (Chair) in the chair.
[English]
The Chair: The purpose of this session is to seek a motion to approve the budget and authorize steering to make final edits and approve the final submission.
It is moved by Senator Sibbeston. We don't need a seconder. Is there any further discussion?
The question has been called. All in favour?
Hon. Senators: Agreed.
The Chair: Opposed?
Carried.
We will allow the witnesses to come in, and I will ask Senator Tannas to sit in the chair, please. Thank you very much.
Senator Scott Tannas (Acting Chair) in the chair.
The Acting Chair: Good evening. I would like to welcome all honourable senators and members of the public who are watching this meeting of the Standing Senate Committee on Aboriginal Peoples either here in the room or via CPAC or the Web.
I am Scott Tannas from Alberta, and I'm the acting chair of the committee.
The mandate of this committee is to examine legislation and matters relating to the Aboriginal peoples of Canada generally. Tonight we are hearing testimony on a specific order of reference authorizing us to examine and report on the challenges and potential solutions relating to the infrastructure on reserves including housing, community infrastructure, and innovative opportunities for financing and more effective collaborative strategies.
This evening we will hear from two organizations: the Ontario First Nations Technical Services Corporation, and the First Nations of Alberta Technical Services Advisory Group.
Founded in 1995, the Ontario First Nations Technical Services Corporation was the first Aboriginal organization in the country with the mandate to provide professional, technical and advisory services to First Nations communities.
Similarly, the First Nations of Alberta Technical Services Advisory Group provides support and training to First Nations technical services staff in Alberta to enable them to advise Alberta chiefs on matters including housing and infrastructure.
Before we proceed to testimony, I would like to go around the table and ask the members of the committee to introduce themselves.
Senator Moore: Good evening; I am Wilfred Moore from Nova Scotia.
Senator Sibbeston: I am Nick Sibbeston from the Northwest Territories.
Senator Ngo: I am Senator Ngo from Ontario.
Senator Beyak: Senator Lynn Beyak from Dryden in northwestern Ontario.
Senator Meredith: Don Meredith from Toronto.
Senator Wallace: John Wallace, New Brunswick.
Senator Raine: I'm Senator Nancy Greene Raine from B.C.
The Acting Chair: Members of the committee, please help me in welcoming our witnesses from the Ontario First Nations Technical Services Corporation: Mr. Bob Howsam, Executive Director; and Mr. Wes Bova, President. Joining them at the table from the First Nations of Alberta Technical Services Advisory Group, we have Mr. Vaughn Paul, Chief Executive Officer.
Gentlemen, we are very much looking forward your presentations, which will be followed by questions from the senators. Please proceed.
Bob Howsam, Executive Director, Ontario First Nations Technical Services Corporation: I think I got the short straw so I'm going first.
Mr. Chair and honourable members, on behalf of the Ontario First Nations Technical Services Corporation we would like to thank you for the opportunity to provide a technical perspective and highlight some of the challenges that First Nations encounter when delivering infrastructure to meet the needs of their citizens.
We need to remind you that our presentation is from a technical perspective only and is not intended to replace the perspectives of the Assembly of First Nations, Chiefs of Ontario and Ontario First Nation leaders regarding issues such as consultation, financial issues, Aboriginal land and treaty rights that have been raised by the leadership in Ontario.
As stated, in cooperation with Ontario First Nation communities and affiliated tribal council technical units, we deliver advice and support on infrastructure issues to address the evolving needs of First Nations. The following is a list of services we provide: water and waste water engineering services; water and waste water operator training through the Circuit Rider Training Program; environmental services; project planning and development; fire safety and protection; and housing and infrastructure.
We understand you've asked us here to provide you with a technical perspective on challenges that First Nations face in the area of housing and community infrastructure, as well as opportunities for improvement, either through financing alternatives or more effective strategies for existing resources.
Let us begin by trying to quantify the challenges that First Nations communities face. Ontario communities range from Six Nations of the Grand River with an on-reserve population of 15,000 people, to a wonderful community called Long Dog, or Wawakapewin, which is a small fly-in community accessible only by float plane in the summer and winter road in the winter, and their on-reserve population at maximum is about 80 people. Each of these communities and the other 132 communities in Ontario face unique challenges and opportunities. It's dangerous to generalize the challenges and solutions, but we're going to try to do that, at your request.
We feel that housing is a crucial part of communities being strong and families having an opportunity to succeed. There are a number of challenges, mostly around money. The current funding formulas are dated. In Ontario, CMHC's residential rehabilitation program in 2012 covered 159 units in Ontario with a budget of $3.1 million.
In addition to resource challenges, program design limitations impact the community's ability to use that funding and use it in an effective way.
The First Nations Market Housing Fund is a new reality for Ontario First Nations. It does work for some communities and some families: We estimate probably about 20 per cent of communities in Ontario. However, limiting the capacity development portion of that programming to communities that sign up for the program is a constraint on how effective that program and amount of money could be.
Another issue is that budget announcements and program design do not always coincide with construction seasons, particularly in the remote communities where winter roads are the only time to mobilize construction. Obviously summer is the only time to build a house.
Other challenges include lack of qualified tradespeople, mould caused by overcrowding and a number of other issues, and a lack of resources for maintenance. The reality unfortunately is sometimes outside contractors will come and build a house or a community building and leave without providing the support they should to follow up on their work.
Another challenge is the tribal councils that provide inspections of housing, for instance, and support services to most communities are challenged due to recent funding cuts, which will impact them as of April 1.
Some communities have well-developed building codes and solid inspection services. I would say the majority of communities, however, are challenged in the areas of internal capacity and access to certified professionals. We always talk about the chief and council as the authority having jurisdiction in the area of housing, but many are limited in their ability to exercise that jurisdiction.
To summarize around housing, four challenges really are areas needing improvement. The first is clarity around legislation, as well as programming and what the ``authority having jurisdiction'' means and how it translates into action.
The second relates to new issues around training and certification of inspectors and the ability of supporting institutions such as tribal councils to provide assistance in the area of housing inspections.
The third concerns capital and maintenance funding to support communities is a huge challenge. We estimate there is probably a 12,000-unit backlog for houses in the 134 communities in Ontario. Section 95 funding from CMHC in the fiscal year that's just finishing accounted for 79 units, with a budget of $25 million.
The other big issue of course is the quality of housing. That includes maintenance, overcrowding, mould and big challenges around energy efficiency, particularly in northern communities where obviously the weather is not as hospitable as it is in beautiful Ottawa, Ontario.
That's our summary around housing.
In terms of infrastructure, at the request of the Ontario regional chief, we completed an infrastructure gap analysis for Ontario First Nations. The analysis indicates a 20-year shortfall of $8 billion for Ontario communities, and we are leaving a summary document behind which gives you a little more detail on that class D estimate that we produced.
The recent federal budget announcement around the extension of the First Nations Water and Wastewater Action Plan is positive news and will assist First Nations to continue operator training, to get facility upgrades and provide enhanced operations and maintenance funding for First Nations. However, permanent funding as opposed to a series of two-year extensions, which has been the history over the last eight years, I believe, would promote better planning.
AANDC has engineering reports from 2005 that were done in Ontario, the expert panel report, as well as the national engineering assessment that was completed by Neegan Burnside. All these studies indicate major investments must be made on a long-term basis around the area of water and waste water.
Significant capital investment into critical water and waste water assets is needed to address long-term boil-water advisories. However, the preference at the moment from our funder appears to be around focusing on the operation and maintenance of existing facilities.
Recent waste water regulations announced by Environment Canada and the incoming safe drinking water for First Nations legislation put First Nations leadership in a position of being liable for First Nation infrastructure assets, in particular water, regardless of the condition. Communities are becoming increasingly concerned about having the human and financial resources to deliver clean water.
The same is true around the area of schools. Ontario First Nations continue to struggle to deliver quality education due to the overcrowding of on-reserve schools. Recent announcements for funding of school capital and operations are very positive. As those come on stream we feel it would greatly benefit communities if the contracting opportunities and project management and business spin-offs were able to remain on reserve as opposed to going back to the communities that are not First Nations communities.
Another big issue is consistent and reliable hydro access for First Nations residents; it continues to be an ongoing issue. There are 26 diesel-generated communities in northern Ontario that have no access to a power grid and rely on very expensive and difficult-to-maintain diesel generated power. Wes Bova, in his regular position with the Matawa Tribal Council, represents a number of those communities. Even in southern Ontario, three-phase power is an issue, and access and cost of electricity is a challenge that all communities face.
When new First Nation community buildings are constructed or expanded in the future, unfortunately fire protection review and inspection services, formerly performed by Labour Canada, have recently been eliminated. We're concerned that that places the assets and the people who use them at risk. Previous federal government oversight was a check and balance that will not be available in the future and will leave a gap in terms of service. The other reality we deal with is that on-reserve fire loss is dramatically higher than fire loss for off-reserve communities.
In terms of solutions, we think there are some. Obviously, the main one is around funding and the amount of funding. We feel there are some areas in housing and other areas that would be positive: National Housing Act reform to include special promotion and rules for First Nations housing projects; enforcement tools for First Nations managers and First Nations inspectors to apply a building code, either a national building code, or the Ontario Building Code in our case; and some kind of enforcement mechanisms either in the Indian Act or adopted by the community that would allow those codes to be developed and then having contractors live up to them.
In the areas of financing and funding, we think providing opportunities around comprehensive community planning is crucial so that the communities have up-to-date data and the support and resources required to do decent planning and have those communities in a state of readiness to proceed with plans to achieve long-term, sustainable community housing, infrastructure and economic development.
Greater flexibility in new and existing government programs is important. For example, government budget and funding commitments allowing for multi-year activities would solve the problem of northern communities having to mobilize in one fiscal year and build in the next fiscal year, whereas right now the rules generally require all of that to happen in one year.
Aboriginal capacity funding currently administered through Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation could be redirected to First Nation organizations to take control of new training and skills development nationally or regionally. We feel the current approach is not as efficient as it could be.
Housing in First Nation communities requires a multi-partnership approach — federal, provincial, private and the First Nations — in seeking innovative funding arrangements. We feel these partnerships will enable communities to get their common goals developed.
Providing financial support and assistance to northern and remote communities to get clean and reliable energy would go a long way to those communities being more successful. There needs to be recognition by funders that the current infrastructure budgets and the operations and maintenance budgets are completely inadequate. A specific area, as the water legislation comes on board, is the First Nations being in control of regulation development around the regulations attached to that legislation.
We feel public-private partnerships, 3P initiatives, do not work well for First Nations communities. All First Nations, even groupings of them, would have difficulty coming up with the dollar values required for these projects to succeed from a funding point of view. The unique P3 approach for First Nations should be developed, such as alternative financing, bank financing, et cetera, that would be more flexible around those challenges.
Also, in terms of when assets are built, a First Nations-driven contracting and delivery process for capital projects — design build would be an example of that — would allow for more timely construction and reduce the money going to outside consultants and allow those communities to develop capacity.
Those are some of our thoughts. Thank you for your time.
The Acting Chair: Thank you.
Mr. Paul?
Vaughn Paul, Chief Executive Officer, First Nations of Alberta Technical Services Advisory Group: Thank you for hosting us this evening.
First off, it's my grandson's ninth birthday today. I know he's not watching, but his grandmother will force him to watch this part. I want to say happy birthday to Terrence. I love you, and I wish I was there.
Thank you for indulging me, ladies and gentlemen.
There's not much more that I can add to what Bob talked about, but I'll certainly give it a try.
Our organization, as he mentioned earlier, is a not-for-profit organization that delivers a number of services in training First Nations communities in Alberta. We are an organization that receives direction from a steering committee of chiefs and a board of directors whose goal is to enable communities and work towards self-sufficiency and economic prosperity.
TSAG provides services such as Asset Condition Reporting System inspections, the Circuit Rider Training Program, environmental management, fire protection and information technology services.
We operate under the governance of a volunteer board of directors comprised of individuals from across the three treaty areas in our province. They share commitment to the development of First Nation technical services and the health and safety of our members.
Our board meets throughout the year to monitor progress, discuss the budget and review opportunities. One of things I am most proud of as an organization is we have always been responsible for the funding we get. We have never had a bad audit. We've always managed the public funding that we get properly and within scope, and I think that's why we have a good relationship with our region, and we continue to do more and more work.
We undertook the Asset Condition Reporting System, or ACRS, in 2007 to produce and standardize asset condition reports that are required by INAC and Treasury Board. The reports provide First Nations with tools to improve the operation and maintenance of their community infrastructure. The cycle of reporting takes place over a three-year period. Our ACRS has already incorporated GIS features to identify the locations of assets and improve the database accuracy, plus have the ability to advise First Nations on its maintenance programs.
We are currently conducting a pilot project on a Web-based application for easy use and better planning for leadership.
ACRS recently incorporated annual inspections of the schools as part of its inspection process. The first year focused on mechanical systems and ensured that additional time was spent onsite with the operators. That's one of the value-added services we provide over the system that existed previous to us undertaking this initiative.
The Circuit Rider program, as Bob talked about, is designed to train First Nation operators to certification levels to maintain water and sewage systems within communities and ultimately provide safe drinking water. We have eight staff who are certified operators and who provide training, oversight and emergency response in situations that require them.
In Alberta, we have a unique situation hearkening back to our relationship with the region. They fund us to provide an adult educator and a troubleshooter. Our estimate for this current fiscal year is that the troubleshooter has saved First Nations and the region over $300,000.
Our Circuit Rider program has built a solid reputation with vendors, giving us the ability to secure preferred pricing and quality of service and products for the communities we work with. We have been able to provide prompt and efficient response to emergency situations to ensure better protection to the communities affected.
In 2010-11, with funding from AANDC, we installed remote water-monitoring systems in 58 water treatment plants across Alberta First Nations. This system allows us to be the first line of defence to ensure that systems monitored by TSAG and communities are providing safe drinking water.
Like our sister organization, we also provide fire protection and prevention. The program works closely with all levels of governments. Our initiative is to raise awareness of fire prevention in Alberta First Nations. Funds for the fire prevention program cover the inspections and investigations, fire reviews, fire flow tests and firefighter training.
Our program has one full-time employee. We certainly know there are not enough resources, human and financial, to service the Alberta First Nations communities, but he's doing the best he can.
Over the past five years, the Information Technology Services Department has built a reputation for providing secure, stable Internet service and support services to our stakeholders. Building on a foundation created with Health Canada for providing services to the community health centres, we have expanded the network footprint to include the only First Nations-owned fibre optic network that provides Alberta's band administration offices and water treatment plants with dedicated connectivity.
We provide a full suite of services to Health Canada on-reserve facilities across the province, such as a fully staffed help desk, enterprise-grade network operations centre, tele-health, media conferencing bridge management, and monthly scheduled on-site support visits.
AANDC has noted the advantages of leveraging the robust infrastructure by providing TSAG with funding to provide Internet connectivity, network support and on-site IT advisory services to delegated First Nation agencies and the Child and Family Services offices in Alberta.
We continue to be the regional management organization for the First Nations SchoolNet. That program provides connectivity to all First Nations schools in Alberta.
Listening to some of the challenges that Bob referred to earlier, everything that he is suggesting is very much similar. I don't want to bore you with our commitments and be redundant. Some of the things that we see in Alberta, in light of the good training that we provide with Circuit Rider Training Program, is that we lose all the good operators we have to industry. Fort McMurray can offer three and four times the wages that First Nations can offer. There's also the fear from the perspective of the operators who have moved on — the whole issue of liability and regulations are associated with that.
Over the last number of years, since the 2 per cent cap has been implemented, the costs of goods and services have risen significantly. To implement costly treatment processes, the costs of chemicals, hydro and natural gas have gone up exponentially. Oftentimes, a lot of our community's budget has been exhausted halfway through the year.
With the creation of new regulations and legislation, it seriously ties the hands of the leadership in trying to make sure and maintain that the systems are operating effectively and safely, more importantly, for its residents.
The concern that our leadership has — and I don't want to speak on their behalf, but information that I hear — is the regulations that we had talked about in this chamber previously are good. We certainly don't disagree that regulations aren't necessary. What we need is funding that adequately reflects that new level of regulations.
With respect to housing, similar developments can and should occur with respect to regulations we see. The cost of maintaining or looking after these homes after they've been poorly constructed in some instances, and not inspected to the level that they should be — communities have to cover costs of going back and repairing, replacing with money that hasn't been allocated or that they'd have to take from another program, such as water treatment.
Then we have all the risks associated with health problems.
Part of the solution that we need to look at and one we're contemplating in Alberta is working a little more cohesively to develop a strategy where we identify roles and responsibilities with our tribal councils, with our First Nations and with AANDC.
In the last two months, we've had joint meetings of our staff and the AANDC staff to start to identify that process. How do we all work together? We're serving the same clients. How can we make the limited resources that are available work more effectively and efficiently?
Thank you for listening.
The Acting Chair: Thank you very much, sir. We'll open the floor to questions.
Senator Sibbeston: I still don't understand everything, but I take it that in Ontario, technical services is a corporation and in Alberta it's an advisory group. In part, governments provide some funding to you so that you can provide the services.
Would you say that this is the federal government's attempt to provide expertise and help First Nations in our country by having groups such as yours in existence? You're the group that provides technical services. Could you say something about that, please?
Mr. Howsam: Our history is that when the federal government started to devolve services in the late 1980s and early 1990s, the vehicle they used was to set up tribal councils to deliver the services that were formerly performed by public servants in the Department of Indian Affairs.
In Ontario's case, the chiefs, in their wisdom, decided that not only did tribal councils have to be there to provide levels of service to communities within their tribal councils, but it would be smart to have an advisory group as well. For instance, we employ five engineers, whereas most tribal councils may have one or none; so a higher level of service, an advisory level of service.
The way it's evolved, we also provide direct service to 17 communities that are not affiliated with tribal councils.
To your original question, we are a corporation under the Ontario corporations legislation. We have a board of directors made up of reps from tribal councils, large First Nations and unaffiliated First Nations. We do receive the bulk of our funding from Indian Affairs.
Senator Sibbeston: It is similar, I guess.
Mr. Paul: We're modelled after the Ontario First Nations Technical Services Corp. They're our big sister or brother. The organization is similar in scope.
Our chiefs of the day felt there was a need to increase the capacity. I can't speak on behalf of what the federal government's intentions were in the creation of this organization, but we certainly have seen the need for First Nation support on the technical services side.
We are a federally incorporated entity as well. The chiefs are the one shareholder of the not-for-profit corporation, and so they elect and appoint the board of directors and appoint the auditor to oversee the organization and the operation.
From our perspective, we look at ways to maximize the delivery of services. As an example, with the ARCS program we talked about in Alberta, a number of years ago when we first contemplated it, the Alberta advantage was going full bore. The communities that were requiring ACRS assessments weren't even getting quotes from some of the engineering firms, they were so busy in the oil fields and the oil sector. So the costs of doing business were relatively high.
We suggested to them that we could do the ACRS studies and we could do them far cheaper. Over the last six and a half years we've been doing them, we estimate that we've saved our region and hopefully First Nations almost $4 million.
With the Circuit Rider Training Program, as I alluded to earlier with the troubleshooter, the small investment that has been made to have this troubleshooter who is a millwright, a mechanic and a water treatment plant operator — since we've had him, I'd estimate that we've saved First Nations and AANDC well over a million dollars by doing the work ourselves as opposed to contracting it out and getting people to come up and do it.
Senator Raine: By ``ACRS,'' do you mean the Asset Condition Reporting System?
Mr. Paul: Yes.
Senator Raine: And that's a system for monitoring the different assets in place — the water treatment plants, the sewer systems and stuff — as well as staying on top of required maintenance and being on top of things so they don't break. Is that how it works?
Mr. Paul: It's more of a Treasury Board requirement that they're inspected to make sure that they are maintained to some degree.
The one issue that they had years ago was that an engineering firm went out. There was a fire; the community lost their school. The engineer that was hired to do it didn't even go to the community, and they were getting funded for their school that was no longer operational. When the chief and council came and asked INAC to build them a new school, they looked at their ACRS report and said, ``What do you want a new school for? You've got a perfectly good one.''
So it's primarily to verify that the asset is still there and that the funding should flow in to provide the maintenance money that's required.
Senator Raine: So you're saying that, by doing it yourself as a group of First Nations and tribal councils, it's done properly. AANDC is getting the right information, and it's a lot more efficient.
Mr. Paul: And it's more value added in that they only fund us to look at AANDC-funded assets. Communities in Alberta have assets of their own that they've constructed over the years, and we provide that value-added service.
The other part is our guys have worked in First Nations communities in the past, and they have some experience and expertise. They'll go into a facility and work with the operator when they do these inspections. We provide value- added services in that they help them operate and maintain their boilers if they're not being looked after correctly. They look after their HVAC systems, help them to look after electrical panels and talk to them about getting fire inspections and sprinkler systems done. Not only are we saving money, but we also feel we're providing a better product.
Senator Raine: Great. Thank you.
Now, for the Circuit Rider Training Program, is that similar in Alberta and Ontario? I remember that we heard about the problem when we were doing a study on water systems a few years ago. You're training these people to be water technologists, and then they have this valuable skill. The next thing you know, they go down the road to another jurisdiction that can pay them more.
There were people living in the community who could be trained in those jobs, and they wouldn't leave because they had a husband and a family and were there permanently. They weren't the young ones who wanted to go off to where the biggest dollar was. Is that happening at all? There was a barrier at that time where you had to have Grade 12 to get into the training program, and we were wondering if that couldn't be adjusted. It's still a problem?
Wes Bova, President, Ontario First Nations Technical Services Corporation: I believe it was for the CET. As a requirement for all operators, they needed a minimum GED or Grade 12 education in order to be certified. It's not possible to forgive that requirement.
In terms of operator outflow, we experience the same. I myself am a professional engineer from Matawa Tribal Council out of Thunder Bay, Ontario. We have five remote communities and four road-accessible ones, but we do observe a high turnover of operators in our plants. Some leave for various reasons, but I find there's a higher incidence of it in First Nations communities than elsewhere.
In looking at the water operation side of it, I've been at Matawa for 10 years now, so I've seen the 2005 engineering reports that were mandated for Ontario. I participated in the expert panel discussions and in the national assessment that was conducted by Neegan Burnside. It's very frustrating, from my perspective, to see how little has been done over the course of 10 years but how much has been invested in investigating and finding the same thing year after year that the plants are getting worse because the significant capital investment that's required hasn't been made. Not only that, the operation and training that's required in order to make sure that our operators can operate those plants is not there as well. Those two things have to coincide in order to ensure safe water.
Now, AANDC and Health Canada utilize a boil-water advisory in order to designate the risk of a plant. I don't believe that that is a very efficient way to do it.
I say that because a lot of plants that I provide advisory services for were constructed maybe 15 or 20 years ago, so they're completely out of compliance with current regulation. Just because there isn't a boil-water advisory on that plant doesn't mean that that plant is up to current regulation. It just means that the water coming out at that point isn't a risk to human health.
Now, to quantify plants on that basis is not a safe assumption because at any given point there could be a positive incidence for E. coli that's detrimental to human health.
Senator Raine: Sounds like a difficult situation that must be discouraging if it's not getting any better.
Mr. Bova: It's consistent in that we're evaluating it and evaluating it, and you don't see any change made because of that. I'll have been there 10 years in May. I've gone through three cycles of us learning that the plants aren't sufficient.
Mr. Howsam: Three things really drive the risk level of a water treatment facility — the raw water, the operation of that plant and the plant itself.
To be fair, there has been large government investment in the training of operators. When Walkerton happened, in Ontario, we think there were eight or nine operators licensed to the level of their plant. Seven of them worked at Akwesasne and two at Kettle and Stoney Point. The other communities were at risk. That number is well over a hundred, so there has been some progress made.
However, Mr. Bova's point around the continuing challenges of facilities and the maintenance of those facilities is a big issue.
Mr. Bova: One additional thing is the rising cost related to the operation and maintenance. I'll give you an example.
Today, I'm dealing with a community I serve in the remote North. They're looking at a shortfall of about $700,000 for fuel. The reason is that they're only able to fly in fuel at any given point when we don't have a winter road. However, with the weather we've had this year, the ice is thick enough so that if they have the money they can truck in full loads of fuel in order to store it. It would generate substantial savings for the community. It is very expensive to fly in fuel to run your community generators.
Senator Raine: This situation arises because nobody can make a decision to use the winter roads, truck in more fuel and store it or because there isn't storage capacity?
Mr. Bova: At one point, they were restricted to only bringing in so much fuel. So you have a very limited window in which to mobilize that fuel over the winter road, if it's there. In recent years, we haven't had a full winter road season where the ice was strong enough for you to truck in full loads of fuel at a substantial savings for operations.
Senator Meredith: You said something about the capacity to store fuel, and it was due to the roads. What happens in those times when the roads are good and they could? To my colleague Senator Raine's point, why not store the fuel? Is there a limitation as to how much fuel can be stored in those communities at any given time, or is it just the capacity to be able to store that fuel?
Mr. Bova: Some of the communities have the ability to store large stores of fuel, but the limiting thing is winter road access. They need to drive across lakes and whatnot to truck it in. Otherwise, they're flying it in. When you're flying in stuff, it gets very cost prohibitive, even for construction of houses. If it's 50 cents a pound, it adds a lot to the cost of building a project.
I've also participated in a number of construction projects in my time at Matawa, and I can only report what I see. Costs that the contractors are putting out to remote First Nations tend to be extremely elevated compared to municipalities. I've worked for consultants in municipalities, too, so I've seen quite a full gamut of costs there across the board.
Senator Meredith: So it's not really going to the projects; it's going somewhere else.
Mr. Bova: There's a mindset that if it's a federally funded project, there's a lot more money.
Senator Meredith: They triple the price, right?
Mr. Howsam, you spoke about the First Nations Market Housing Fund and the challenges around that. You said there was about 20 per cent estimated sort of utilizing this particular vehicle in order to get a home.
We had RBC in yesterday and also BMO, talking to us about their model of funding so that mortgages or securities can be provided so First Nations can get to own their own homes. Explain for me why you see that program not being effective.
Mr. Howsam: There are a number of issues there, a lot of them historical, a lot of them land tenure issues. In particular, in northern communities, the buildings are community owned and there is no land tenure system. Regrettably, you have massively high levels of unemployment in a lot of these communities. Even if you could deal with the land tenure issues, there isn't the economy to generate the money to repay the mortgages. That automatically shrinks where market housing works.
I don't want to be negative about it. It does work in some places. We have worked with both those banks that you mentioned in Ontario, and they have been relatively successful in mostly southern communities where there is an economy, people and ways of dealing with land tenure through certificates of possession, et cetera.
Senator Meredith: You also mentioned looking at economic development on these First Nations reserves and trying to get own-source revenues. The model being touted now across Canada and around the globe is a P3 model, and you feel that there is a sense that this is not working for First Nations. Why is that? How could we do a better job of educating them about this model that has been working and has been widely accepted as a way to develop projects when you talk about infrastructure, whether it be roads or schools? Can you elaborate for me as to why you feel it's ineffective, and what would you recommend to improve so that we can actually put this in our report and hopefully help these First Nations?
Mr. Howsam: I'm certainly not an expert in the field of P3, but my understanding is that you are talking of projects of a magnitude of several hundred million dollars or billions of dollars. I live in Brampton, Ontario. The hospital there was built on a P3 model, and it worked and there is solid, sustainable funding, et cetera. In Ontario, I'm guessing that there was probably $20 million worth of water plants built last year. Even if you were to try to bundle together all the water plants in Ontario in a given year, you would never even come close to the scope required by P3. That's part of the challenge.
Guaranteeing the funding flow: If lenders are going to participate and large construction companies are going to operate in a design/build/operate world, they are dealing with dollar values and planning horizons that simply don't work when, in essence, the vast majority of the funding flows on a yearly parliamentary vote to make that happen.
Senator Meredith: In communities that happen to have resources, like Attawapiskat and De Beers, who is a major player in that community, why are those models not working effectively, seeing that they have the resources? They have the diamonds they are extracting. Why are they not looking at those models and seeing how they could be worked in other communities as well where there are resources identified?
Mr. Howsam: I think the resource realities in northern Ontario provide opportunities, but you would be looking at, for instance, building a road to service a number of communities in northwestern Ontario as opposed to an individual community. You would have to bundle that in terms of hydro development, road development, resource development and all those kinds of things. It doesn't work in an environment where there are 134 communities with 134 decision- makers and those kinds of realities. I'm not sure how well P3 works for small municipalities in northern Ontario. To be honest, I suspect you face some similar challenges but with a lot more secure funding alternatives.
There are things that could be done if federal funding could be guaranteed over a number of years. I am aware of communities that have gone out and borrowed money to build a school, but with the understanding that that money would be there either to pay the interest or hopefully pay down the capital over a number of years.
Senator Meredith: Mr. Paul, thank you for your presentation. You talked about the absence of codes in these communities in terms of proper infrastructure. How receptive are the chiefs and councils to really making improvements with respect to ensuring that they are in compliance in terms of recommendations from your organization and codes and things they need to adhere to so that homes don't fall into disrepair? We have been hearing about homes not built to code and that there are further expenses in terms of repairs. What has been the response when you talk to these chiefs in terms of ``this is where you are at, this is where you need to get to,'' and how are they to satisfy that, given the constraints they are facing financially?
Mr. Paul: I'm not going to speak on behalf of any chiefs and councils, or I'll be looking for a job.
Senator Meredith: I don't want you to criticize them or anything like that. You're interacting with them.
Mr. Paul: I understand.
Senator Meredith: You could always come to Ottawa. You could do something.
Mr. Paul: Part of the discussion we have had in the past is they weren't satisfied with the regime as it had existed. I think that's about to change, especially on the housing side, in that the inspections were done — not code-compliant inspections. They were progress-payment compliant. If you saw other testimony, Keith Maracle earlier said exactly the same thing. If you built the walls, you got a cheque. If you built the roof, you got a cheque.
Senator Meredith: Even if the door is hung upside down, you still got a cheque.
Mr. Paul: If the shingles were put on sideways or upside down, you still got a cheque. That was a problem that our chiefs articulated to me in that we need to look at doing better, because we are going back and we have our people living in these houses and they are not necessarily safe. I don't think that code issues will be a problem.
Are resources going to be attached with the development of regulations? There are so many variables associated with regulations when they're implemented in First Nations communities, and anywhere, in particular in First Nations communities. Especially in Alberta, probably in Ontario too, we start getting into that whole jurisdictional quagmire. Who's going to be responsible and who's going to be the enforcement agency?
Don't get me wrong. In our Circuit Rider Training Program, we work within the Alberta regulations. All our certified operators are trained to the provincial standard. They write the provincial exams. We are operating under that regime already. The question or concern we will have is with regard to enforcement, penalties, liability, all of those things that are still being considered.
We certainly welcome from our perspective — I'm not going to get into that. I think we're open to that. We have to develop them in partnership, and from what my chief from down south says, that's how he understands we're going forward on regulations for drinking water, and we hope that's the direction we are going in.
Senator Wallace: Mr. Howsam, you told us that an infrastructure gap analysis was done for Ontario First Nations communities. Mr. Paul, you spoke about asset reports that have been done in Alberta. When I hear all of this, I wonder, where do you start? There's so much there to be done, and the answer we hear most often is it requires more money. It's just money; money will solve it, and I'm sure that will go a long way to improving it.
Sitting on this committee, where do we begin on all of this? There seem to be so many pieces and so much that needs to be done.
When I hear you mention the gap analysis and the reports that have been done, maybe as a starting base, can you give us a sense in both Alberta and Ontario of how much groundwork has been done to establish on a reserve-by- reserve basis in those provinces what the current state of infrastructure is and what is needed to advance it to an appropriate level? When I speak about infrastructure, I'm thinking of water and sewerage facilities, roads, electricity and perhaps schools. As a starting point, what exists in the various provinces now to assess those needs?
Mr. Howsam: For our reality in Ontario, on the water and sewer side, I think we have a pretty solid handle on what is out there and what is required. Off the top of my head, I don't remember the Neegan Burnside number for Ontario. We thought it was probably light, but it was reasonable.
On the other assets, such as community buildings, linear structures, all those kinds of things, it's much harder to quantify. We have never claimed that our gap analysis is anything better than a class D estimate. I don't know if there's such a thing as a class F estimate, but that's probably what it is. It would be a best guess at what it is. We tried to quantify it around schools, housing, linear structures, water and sewer, et cetera.
Communities can probably tell you it would be much better. We talked about comprehensive community planning; if there was really solid planning work being done at each community, it would be better.
To answer your question, we've got a pretty solid sense of the challenges around water and sewer, less so around other kinds of infrastructure.
Senator Wallace: What about in Alberta?
Mr. Paul: A good non-answer and I'll follow it up with a good non-answer of my own.
We are required in our region to do APIs every year on water treatment plants and schools, as we talked about. I can't give you the number required. I can do some investigation and report back to the committee, but our water treatment plants and systems are in relatively good condition. We've got eight still considered high risk, and the biggest reason they are high risk is the raw water source. On a scale of 1 to 10, they are at 10 as per the raw water system. That's only going to get more troubling.
In Alberta, our chairman can probably attest that our lakes and source water isn't as good as it could be or should be. Optimizing and treating that water in order to provide clean, safe drinking water to our communities will be even more challenging. It's not something we can't achieve, but it's going to cost more money.
Regarding the question with respect to money, ``if we had more money, it would solve all our problems,'' we know that's not the reality. With regard to a lot of our assets, our schools, they are in relatively good condition. Those APIs are a requirement every year to be inspected. We make sure we stay on top of that. We work with the operators of those facilities to ensure they meet the requirements that exist.
Senator Wallace: Would you have information that would cover all the reserves in Alberta and all the reserves in Ontario as to the condition of that infrastructure and what the shortfall is?
Mr. Paul: We do.
Senator Wallace: Could that information be made available to us?
Mr. Paul: INAC would have it, and I can't provide it unless I have express permission from the First Nation.
Senator Wallace: Perhaps we'll follow up on that, then.
!!! As far as the addressing the need, do you find that all or most of the reserves have plans, that the chiefs and councils have developed specific plans to address their infrastructure shortfalls? Or is it expected that some federal government department would prepare those plans?
Mr. Bova: In my own capacity at Matawa, we have undertaken a number of capital planning studies to plan for infrastructure growth for a 25-year time frame. At the end of the day, there are dollar figures associated with it.
I think one of the problems we have been experiencing is that everything seems to be in a silo. You can't look at a community and say, ``If we solved this one problem, everything will be better.'' When you focus on one asset, other assets get pushed to the side and they decline. Right now the focus is water, so a lot of other infrastructure in the communities is being neglected because money is being focused on that one asset.
Senator Wallace: That makes sense, but what I'm trying to get a sense of is when you look at each of the reserves in Alberta and Ontario, would many or any of them have relatively comprehensive analyses of the state of infrastructure on the reserves and the needs, not just water and sewerage, but roads, power and schools? Does that exist?
It's hard to plan how to move forward in order to correct what we believe the issues are if you don't have accurate information to size up where it's at today. That's what I'm trying to understand.
Mr. Bova: That was the purpose of the board mandating us to complete this gap analysis as a whole for Ontario. We can get specific for each First Nation, if required. I could do that in my own capacity for the nine communities that I provide service for. I think I could be fairly accurate in an assessment of those assets, in terms of what's required.
Senator Wallace: With that information, have any of the chiefs and councils developed a plan to address the issue? If the information is there to assess what they're facing, are plans being implemented that tackle water and sewerage and roads in a comprehensive way? If they don't, who does?
Mr. Bova: I would say within the reality of the funding scheme, it is. But the way it's diverted now, it's not necessarily true that because you're planning to build your community and you're going to address your diesel generating station this year and we will do the water plant in year two and it will cost us $6 million, the diesel generating station will cost $12 million.
I had a community that, luckily, just completed repairs on their water treatment plant, their diesel generating station and their waste water plant, so they are sitting well compared to a lot of my other communities. I have one community that has been legislated for a diesel generating station overall since 2009. Unfortunately, their site is contaminated by fuel, which is a big road block to getting that project completed. You have to deal with that before any money will be put into doing capital upgrades for the plan.
Like I said, everything in First Nations communities is in a silo, and it needs to be looked at as a whole in order to address the problems, in my perspective.
Mr. Paul: To add to that, in Alberta we have comprehensive, long-term capital plans. There is not enough money to fund all the things that are required. Every community has them.
As part of that ACRS study, we go back and meet with the community, identify their deficiencies, work with them and help them develop their capital plans. It's part of our funding agreement; we have to have these comprehensive community plans.
I guess you can look at these for the next 25 years; unless you can find the resources to implement them, the assets sometimes deteriorate to the point where they have to be replaced. If we can get ahead of that, then we would save a significant amount of money.
Senator Wallace: I have one final question on the training of inspectors who would do the inspections on reserves, both for new capital construction and reviewing ongoing maintenance of existing infrastructure.
Do you find that the situation is improving? I realize both of your associations are involved in providing that kind of training. Do you find that it's improving, that there are more qualified inspectors now on the reserves? You spoke about some of the limitations and challenges with other job opportunities elsewhere. Is the situation improving in terms of qualified inspectors on reserves in your provinces, or is it basically stagnant and not improving?
Mr. Paul: I think from our perspective there isn't enough work for the number of inspectors we have now. CMHC allocation for on-reserve construction last year in Alberta was 60 units. In order to have the level of expertise that we require, it is just not cost-effective.
If we go to the next level of safety codes or certified inspections and services, where is that extra money going to come from to cover that off? That's the concern we have going forward. If it's a requirement — and we understand it's a requirement April 1 — CMHC will require you have these certified inspectors to do those jobs before anything is released.
Part of the discussion we want to have in Alberta is how we train our own folks toward safety code officers. Looking at the current system as it now, it's going to take anywhere between two or three years to get guys to that level of certification. There are going to be a few challenges if it was to be implemented now. Certainly we haven't looked at it as thoroughly as we'd like to just yet, but this is new to us, as matter of fact.
Mr. Howsam: For Ontario I'd say probably status quo, maybe slight improvement. In Ontario, the people who do the housing inspections on reserve work for either tribal councils or for us. We provide direct service to a number of communities.
With regard to the challenges around the certification level of those individuals, I would say most of them are all CET educated, technician level. Whether or not they have passed or could pass the Ontario Building Officials Association, which is the standard in Ontario, it's probably a mixed bag. Certainly the people who work for us and for some of the tribal councils could become OBOA certified if they wanted to.
Senator Moore: Thank you, witnesses, for coming.
In regard to your last answers to Senator Wallace in terms of building codes — having to meet those and the CMHC stipulation that as of April 1 this will be part of the deal — it sounds to me like this is news to you. But we were told in evidence that you were advised two years ago that this was coming. Is that not so?
Mr. Paul: News to me.
Senator Moore: Really?
Mr. Howsam: The letter was dated last week, I think.
Senator Moore: Last week? We could look it up, but I know we were told that the First Nations were advised at least two years ago that this was coming and you had to prepare to have people who were properly certified do the necessary inspections to meet the building codes. I thought, well, if that happened you would have a couple years to hopefully train some of your own people, not have to hire people from down south or somebody else to do it. You just got a letter dated last week?
Mr. Howsam: I think the expectation has probably always been there, but in terms of impacts on funding, the notification was pretty recent.
Senator Moore: You never got a letter like that couple of years ago saying that this was going to be in place, et cetera?
Mr. Howsam: Not that I'm aware of.
Mr. Paul: No.
Mr. Bova: My understanding was that requirement has always been there, it's just never been enforced. Like Bob has indicated, there was a letter provided to First Nations that this was going to be in force within a span of a couple of months, effective April 1.
Senator Moore: Have either of your organizations made an effort to have people within your communities certified to be building inspectors? To me, this is a great business opportunity. Has that happened?
Mr. Paul: One of the things that we're considering is being an agency of the Alberta safety codes association. You're right, organizationally we're very entrepreneurial. Part of what we did on the technology side is create an arm's-length organization to provide technical services from an IT perspective. We did that over the last couple of years and we're doing quite well with it. We see an opportunity such as this and we know that where there are gaps, they need to be filled. We see an opportunity to provide building codes.
Senator Moore: Mr. Bova, with your qualifications and experience it seems to me it wouldn't take much for you to be certified to be a code inspector.
Mr. Bova: If I chose to be, yes.
Senator Moore: I don't know if you have the time to do it, but —
Mr. Bova: I also look after generating stations, water treatment plants, waste water plants, as well as the community infrastructure. I actually have a certified building inspector working for me at the tribal council.
With respect to your question on the opportunity to utilize this for capacity training, I am able to hire a person, a staff member, in order to do those inspections in nine communities. Given our allotment for CMHC funding for this RRAP program, and any of the communities that were successful in attaining CMHC section 95 new home construction, it's one person for nine communities that keeps them gainfully employed. It's not one person in a community because with the way we rotate the funding, you may not have work for a couple of years in between when you're going to get our allotment to do some inspections on some rehabilitation on a structure or a new home.
That is the limitation in terms of being able to say that person is gainfully employed in a remote community; you can't guarantee they will have gainful employment.
Senator Moore: You need that critical mass of projects.
Mr. Bova: Right.
Mr. Howsam: We hired a gentleman two years ago named Nathan Hill from Six Nations who was a brand new certified engineering technology grad. As of today he has passed all his tests, et cetera, around wood energy, inspection processes, energy efficiency and all of those kinds of things. That is happening, but as Vaughn says, it doesn't happen quickly. It takes some time.
Senator Raine: Mr. Paul, in the notes we have here it says that you've had some experience with Habitat for Humanity. I'm wondering what your experience has been and do you think this is a potential in the future for building homes in First Nations communities?
Mr. Paul: I think we did it because Enbridge was a sponsor. We put two First Nation families in homes in Edmonton. We wouldn't be able to do it without the sponsorship we were able to achieve. The mindset from our perspective — my perspective. I can only use my community, but I think it might be a microcosm of Alberta First Nations. Housing is very frustrating in that we have only a small percentage of people who are interested in home ownership. Because of land tenure situations, the ongoing responsibility of maintaining those homes, the out-of-pocket costs, it's the most frustrating file for me. We actually don't do a lot of work on reserve housing.
Until our communities and our individuals in our First Nations make the decision to go towards rentals or home ownership, I don't want to spend a lot of my time treading water.
On the Habitat for Humanity side, we had a great opportunity. We enjoyed doing it. All of our staff participated in the build. We put in the hours, the sweat equity that is required for those two families, and we were able to satisfy them. But since then our relationship with Enbridge and Habitat is no longer going forward.
Senator Raine: We keep hearing that in Alberta there's lots of opportunity for jobs and careers in many different areas. Why do people not want to have ownership of their own home? Is there something standing in the way of them getting land tenure, or is that just not the way it's been?
Mr. Paul: A lot of our elders or a lot of communities will suggest that there's a treaty right to housing. I'll probably get in a lot of trouble for this, but I haven't bought into it yet, or probably won't. I think that the programs as they exist, the social housing programs, are for people in need.
In my community, I see people with some pretty nice cars. They put their money into a nice vehicle and nice clothes. That house should be for people that need the assistance. So to me, I don't spend a lot of time in my community talking about housing because people know how I feel. That's a personal position.
I was a housing and public works manager in my community 20 years ago. To make people understand about sustainable housing programs was the most frustrating thing I've ever done, and I've got three boys that are a little bit troublesome.
I think that's all I am going to say to that.
Senator Raine: It's not easy, especially if people have an expectation that it should be given to them. We've heard from other groups saying that there should be a wide spectrum of opportunity for all kinds of housing, but obviously that doesn't happen everywhere.
Senator Meredith: Mr. Paul, you talk about technology and connecting your communities. Can you elaborate a little bit on how that took place? Are you using satellite? You talk about fibre optics. Have you engaged the young people?
You talk about the high employment on First Nations. How have you been able to wrap some of these young people who are graduating in the IT field into some of these programs, or to be able to keep them within their communities and provide them that opportunity for employment?
Mr. Paul: That's great. I'm glad you picked up on that.
Senator Meredith: I was listening.
Mr. Paul: A bit of a salesman pitch here now.
We've invested some of our own resources. We were able to get some funding out of the department, and then we went to the bank and borrowed some money to buy 51 per cent of a company that was providing a lot of the technology and support in our communities.
Over the last few years, through an investment that the Alberta government had made called the Alberta SuperNet, they plowed many miles of fibre cable into the ground. Our region initially connected from the edge of the reserve to the schools, every First Nations school. This was ten, twelve years ago.
But six or seven years ago, our regional Health Canada office approached us about connecting health centres, and we were able to do it in the span of one summer, one construction season. We were able to do it ahead of schedule, under budget. By November, we had every single health centre connected. In January, after we did all the testing, we lit up, and it just so happened to coincide with President Obama's inauguration. I was in one of the communities at the time, and everybody was around the desk watching the inauguration. It was the coolest thing.
Senator Meredith: Incredible.
Mr. Paul: So we took it another level, and we did some research. One of the things, of course, was around water treatment plants and everybody's concerns, liabilities, everything, with regard to that. We found a technology in Austria that monitors all our water treatment plants.
So the next logical step for us was to connect all the water treatment plants, and we put up towers. That served two purposes: to get us real-time information as to the quality of water before it goes out to the community, and then the other part was we could expand our residential Internet service provision to houses.
So we've got 2,500 clients. There are 10,000 First Nations homes. Our objective is to have all 10,000, because as I said earlier, we are a not-for-profit corporation, but we created this business venture that would —
Senator Meredith: Sustainable funding.
Mr. Paul: Exactly. Put money into our own organization, start looking at ways that we can keep that money in our economy, in our community.
Senator Meredith: It is almost like a loop. But in terms of just having that opportunity to be able do that, I commend you for that.
Now, how is that in terms of best practices? Are you sharing that with the 612 bands across Canada?
Mr. Paul: You bet.
Senator Meredith: As a committee, we sometimes get frustrated when we hear of good things that are happening but they're not being shared with other communities.
Mr. Paul: We want to share them because we want to sell our technology.
Senator Meredith: I think that's the way to go. You have been able to source that water treatment technology in Austria and bring it here, saying, ``How can we get things in real time?'' You're self-monitoring. The system monitors, and there are certain levels in terms of what's coming out of the water plant, so you can react to it quickly. If there's problem, you can probably send an electronic signal to shut it down as well. I think that's all built into your system.
These are the kind of things we want to see and put into our report. This is a good thing that can stretch across Canada with respect to the First Nations communities.
As I said, I commend you for that, but I think it is important that we begin to share this. That will be in our report as one of the nuggets we've learned from you coming here this evening.
The second part of my question was the youth component. Were you able to get a lot of youth involved in running cables, in terms of looking at this entrepreneurially as well? When a system goes down, you need to have technicians to be able to respond quickly.
In terms of provincially and federally, how were you able to get some of these youth involved in some training programs? We know that in our budgets we have announced skills training and so forth, and somehow there might be some opportunities there as well.
Mr. Paul: Through HRSDC and INAC, with a program called Skills Link, we're able to provide each community with a certain amount of dollars for youth 15 to 30, or whatever the program is. We've had good success over the last three years of using that program. People have been trained to be computer techs. A quarter of our staff does the installations in First Nations with regard to ISP clients. We have got guys that construct the towers and that do the service calls. All our in-house techs that repair computers and software and whatever else are all First Nation.
For us, that's another benefit. We still see opportunity going further along. So if you can include that as one of your nuggets, we'd greatly appreciate it, because we want this technology in every First Nation.
We know that it could mitigate and hopefully satisfy a lot of the concern around the liability, because we get — every three minutes that thing bounces back and sends us information as to the quality of that drinking water, within the parameters that any community can set. So if you can get Bob to buy all of those, it would be greatly appreciated.
Senator Meredith: Bob, I recommend that you buy that from Paul.
Mr. Howsam: We've already had discussions with the very entrepreneurial Mr. Paul.
Senator Meredith: Let's close the deal now.
Mr. Paul: We found the solution, but we're also the distributor for it in Canada. We'll sell it to anyone.
Senator Raine: Bob, are you looking at doing the same thing in Ontario?
Mr. Howsam: The organizations have evolved a little differently. We haven't got involved in connectivity. An organization called K-Net, which I'm sure people are aware of, has done some excellent work, with fibre going in, and satellites. But as Vaughn was saying, water and waste water is a big focus of ours. It makes more sense to have remote monitoring as opposed to an operator trying to look after a plant 24 hours in a small community.
We've already talked to Vaughn about using that technology, because there is a strong preference to go to First Nations suppliers who have some understanding of the challenges. You can be assured we'll be knocking on his door.
Senator Beyak: Both my questions were answered, by Senator Raine and Senator Meredith.
Senator Meredith: We understand there's competition. There's Shaw and Rogers. How do you compare in terms of being an ISP, in terms of providing to those 10,000 homes that you want to get into? Are you the only one; there's no competition?
Mr. Paul: We've got a lot of competition, and we're comparable.
A number of years ago, with the connectivity money that was rolled out from the federal government to different partners throughout Canada, the gas co-ops in Alberta started a company. They got $20 million from the province and $10 million from the federal government. We got some money from the federal government, but nowhere near $30 million.
We have a gentlemen's agreement. They don't come into our territory and we don't go into their territory. But the reality is that if they wanted to put us out of business, they could. They have far superior technology.
Ours is good; don't get me wrong. We can still compete. What we're banking on is the loyalty of First Nations putting that money into their own company, which then, once we've paid off our bank loan, that money can go back to the community in some form or fashion.
This past year, our share of the profits was in excess of $300,000. But we satisfied our bank loan and we continue to invest in our company. In three and a half years, once we've satisfied our conditions, then the rest is profit.
Senator Meredith: Excellent. I commend you for that. Thank you.
The Acting Chair: Gentlemen, on behalf of all the senators here, we want to thank you for taking the time to come and see us. We want to thank you for your candour and patience in educating us as we look at this incredibly important subject. Thank you again for your time.
(The committee adjourned.)