As my friend has stated, our community was the first to actually pass the land code and support the framework agreement. In doing so, we were venturing into the unknown from coming out of underneath the Indian Act.
I was chief at that point in time. Under the direction of the elders in the community, they had seen how difficult it was for us to move forward in any areas of economic development or improvements within the community itself, and how to access capital or financing to do any kinds of ventures that we had.
They gave me the mandate to take our community into land management. Our community did ratify our land code with 96% voting in favour of establishing our own lands by coming away from the Indian Act. I know we're short for time, but our community is 50 miles north of Toronto. We had some of the largest undeveloped lakeshore property in the area.
Through the Indian Act, we had several deals that were lost because of the time constraints and moving at the speed of business. Now we can do that and have the access to capital to create our own cottage industry. It has improved our revenues—I would say a tenfold increase in our community revenues—which in turn helps us subsidize programs where we experience shortfalls from government funding.