Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  Thank you for the question Quite honestly, I live and breathe this stuff every day, and I think about it every day. I think about my grandparents, who were very close to me growing up, and what they were hoping for and wanting, and I see it here: This is what they were hoping for and wanting.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  Yes, there's definitely a sweet spot. If you go to some communities in my area, there will be some who just won't use the first nations gas. They're first nations, and they won't use the gas station because of the tax amount. I'm thinking that if you're saving anyway, why don't you just use it?

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  I mean this with the utmost respect to all governments, but it's an education process for anybody we're working with, anybody we interface with who has old ideas and old ways of doing things. Quite frankly, we just have to educate them on what this means for us. As I said, we have to learn too.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  I'm sorry; I missed the question. Was it about consent?

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  Absolutely. It's a key part of reconciliation. Quite frankly, for me, this is about respect. If you want to get consensus and build relationships, you have to get people involved as early as possible. If things are happening and moving very fast, the next thing you know is, “Oh, by the way, what do you guys think?”

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  I can say this generally speaking. I am in the Coast Salish territory, and property values are very high there. If you think about it, if a first nation wanted to build a bunch of homes there and sell them on 99-year leases and collect those property taxes every year, they could set up a pretty nice little system there—and they have.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  It's been those who have opted in, 100%. The word is this: If we use the Indian Act to get any of these things, we're buried. It's only on the new systems that we have done better.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  That's a good question. Each member of the first nations who had to vote to support or approve this knew very well—because there was a lot of consultation—that this was one of the things that would come from it, and they're not happy now. I know some of the communities that have gone through this, and the leadership largely say that this was a good thing and that the pros outweigh the cons.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  That's a good question. I've wondered about this for a while. I'm in a unique place. We're in a unique place in British Columbia. I was just watching the news last night. The City of Vancouver has actually put an action plan together for UNDRIP. They supported and passed a law on it a long time ago.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  I'm sorry. I didn't understand the question. What was the impact of which taxes?

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  Oh, I see. I was only commenting on the questions that were raised in the motion. Frankly, I had to take a step back and ask what impact this would have, and I was just using a hypothetical that it does appear that industries are in our backyards and that we are greatly affected by them.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  Yes, and I think especially if they're raising it. I will go back to my asking what the process was for communications. I just need to be careful: I have been working in some communities where communications have been sent, but they haven't been followed up on, so I'd like to see what communications were done.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  I was thinking about all the different experiences I've had when this issue has come up and how we've muddled through it, if you will, because it's been a new topic and a new idea in the last decade or so. However, certainly at the NACCA level—I'm a former chair of NACCA, by the way—when I sat at that table, we were interfacing with government on various projects and various issues, and this question of what was meant by economic reconciliation started coming up, so we had our own internal thing that we'd have to communicate back and forth.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  Thank you. NACCA is in a unique place, I believe, because of what I mentioned, which is our access to entrepreneurs across Canada from coast to coast to coast. The idea of procurement came up. It's developed over time so that now we have a pretty solid position on this. We have networked with our IFIs, our indigenous financial institutions, across the country.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  Thank you. I think, quite honestly, bluntly and respectfully, that we know best who's indigenous and who's not. We do. If you give us the framework to create that, we will. As I said, we've already started that process, and we've already started creating some goalposts. If we are given the mandate to create those goalposts so we know that they will be there, we will create them.