The minister of Aboriginal Affairs says he’s pleased more First Nations have signed onto the government’s land management act.
The act allows bands to create their own land codes.
This allows them to create businesses and zone the land for different things without having to go through Ottawa.
Yesterday the English River and Yellow Quill First Nations joined the Act.
Minister Bernard Valcourt says however only bands that meet certain economic benchmarks are allowed to join:
“You know they have got to have a solid capacity to enter the land-management regime and these are all set by the First Nations Land Management Board.”
Right now only bands that are not in third party management and have a low or medium general assessment score can sign onto the act.
Valcourt says he’s not aware of any fly-in communities that have qualified for this measure, but believes it may happen in the future with the help of resource development.
“Eventually with all the resource development that is taking place in those areas, I’m thinking north of 55, eventually you could see that even those communities could take advantage.”
He adds the act promotes a lot of entrepreneurial spirit in participating communities and “tremendous results” are being seen.