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Results: 76 - 90 of 2766
View Kelly McCauley Profile
CPC (AB)
Thank you, again, to the witnesses. It's great feedback we're receiving here.
Mr. Sinclair, it's good to see you here. I was at Enoch a couple of weeks ago, visiting the fire hall. They have some work to do there, so I'm hoping we can get some work done on that.
I want to make a couple of comments. When we did this study three and a half years ago on how to better serve indigenous small businesses, I spent some time with the U.S. Small Business Administration. They don't set goals as we're trying to do here; rather, they do it on a name-and-shame business. They far exceed their goals, similar to the numbers you were talking about in Australia.
I asked how they did that, and they said that no one in the government—the bureaucrats—wanted to be the person who did not reach their targeted goals for marginalized groups. Even without these concrete goals, some other countries are succeeding.
We've heard a bunch about difficulty in meeting qualifying restrictions. Can you give us some examples, Ms. Suitor? I think you brought it up.
Marnie Suitor
View Marnie Suitor Profile
Marnie Suitor
2021-06-09 18:53
I'll give you a couple of real live examples. An RFP was completed. I think there were 55 to 60 hours put into this RFP. In the fine print within that RFP was a requirement to submit the technical response on one USB and the narrative on another. The entrepreneur overlooked that one requirement and was immediately disqualified from the process.
The second example would be an RFP that went in after significant hours of investment. Again, the fine print had indicated that the font needed to be a certain size within the document. Unfortunately, the font was not 11, but probably a 12, so again the application was kicked out very early in the process.
I have to ask in both scenarios: What did that have to do with the quality and the content of the response? Absolutely nothing. I think that taking a really good look those criteria for responses comes first and foremost.
View Kelly McCauley Profile
CPC (AB)
Philip Ducharme
View Philip Ducharme Profile
Philip Ducharme
2021-06-09 18:54
I do agree with everything Ms. Suitor said.
One of the other ones was.... It was interesting when one of the RFPs that came out was for cloth face masks. The federal government came out right at the beginning, in March, saying that they were looking at businesses to pivot to help meet the needs, and within that RFP there was a requirement for three previous cloth requirements. How are we going to get any opportunities if we had to have those requirements before even applying to the RFP? I think that's something the government has to look at if it is really serious about bringing in indigenous businesses. Again, that's almost a weed-out thing, sort of what Ms. Suitor was talking about. I think that's a prime example of what we have heard about within the last year.
View Kelly McCauley Profile
CPC (AB)
That's an excellent example.
I'm going to bring up the previous hearing again.
We heard about the difficulties in scaling up businesses. We've heard that the mother parliament in the U.K., when large contracts are given to, say, a PCO doing parliamentary precinct work, actually requires them to repost their subcontracting jobs on the government website. We tried to push for that, but it went nowhere. Do you think something like this would help with the scaling issue, where a company is perhaps not large enough to bid on a billion-dollar contract but they're shut out of the subcontracting? It's still taxpayers' money, but they're not getting access to the subcontracting jobs.
Philip Ducharme
View Philip Ducharme Profile
Philip Ducharme
2021-06-09 18:56
I believe that is something the government does have to look at. I understand that in a lot of the RFPs coming out right now, they are asking for the impact benefit plans. The federal government is looking at their prime vendors to help them meet that 5%. That's something they have to record and monitor. What makes us a little nervous when they have these indigenous benefit plans is the follow-through. What happens if they haven't met the requirements? There have been instances in the past when an indigenous business partnered with a non-indigenous on a contract; the non-indigenous business won the contract, but when the work was actually awarded, the indigenous business was told their capabilities were no longer needed. They were utilized for that.
Again, I think it has to be incentivized. Even when you look at the U.S. government, if they don't meet that target, I believe they're put into a caution and might not have the opportunity to bid on future government contracts.
View Kelly McCauley Profile
CPC (AB)
That is an excellent point.
Is there anything that is working right now? Is there any good news in the procurement process?
Feel free to say no.
Philip Ducharme
View Philip Ducharme Profile
Philip Ducharme
2021-06-09 18:57
I do think some stuff is working, as I said earlier. I've never had as many connections with different government departments.
View Irek Kusmierczyk Profile
Lib. (ON)
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
This is an open question, kind of a basic one, but I think it's important to understand. What impact has the pandemic had on indigenous businesses, whether we're talking about revenue, cancellation of contracts or even about access to proper mentoring and supports throughout the process? Can you give us a picture of how disruptive COVID has been to indigenous businesses?
Philip Ducharme
View Philip Ducharme Profile
Philip Ducharme
2021-06-09 18:58
I can start.
I think we lost a lot of opportunities because many indigenous businesses were smaller and relied on face-to-face meetings. They—especially the artisans—would go to powwows or to trade shows. They'd go around and do that.
A lot of our businesses struggle as well with the fact that everything is online right now and there are connectivity issues for some remote locations. Of the first nations businesses we deal with, I would say close to 30% don't even have a website. Again, we're trying to educate the businesses about this, because most people will do a search on a company's website before approaching them. That's an area where we've struggled.
Again—and this is not regarding procurement—indigenous businesses were unable to take advantage of a lot of the programming that had been introduced until groups like ours and NACCA stepped in and said, “Things need to be changed.” Indigenous businesses have been disadvantaged in a lot of ways that others haven't.
Donald (Rocky) Sinclair
View Donald (Rocky) Sinclair Profile
Donald (Rocky) Sinclair
2021-06-09 18:59
If I can just speak directly to my experience on the lending side in support of entrepreneurs in the first nations within Alberta, we were right in the middle of the downturn in the oil and gas economy, so we were already hurting very badly in Alberta, and of course the pandemic following that has caused a lot of problems and failures in our community.
In terms of just the pandemic itself, in our organization the kind of support that we provide is really hands-on, and with the limitations and the challenges of the pandemic, our ability to deliver what we need to deliver in the community has been severely affected. We're going to have to make up for lost time in that regard.
It really has been in a holding pattern currently. Yes, it's been tough, just as it has been for everybody else out there.
Marnie Suitor
View Marnie Suitor Profile
Marnie Suitor
2021-06-09 19:00
I could add to that a little bit. A lot of our businesses, as has already been said, are owner-operated or smaller businesses. Not having the ability to pivot quickly or have the resources to help with a pivot strategy was definitely felt here. Then, of course, an unfortunate outcome of the pandemic is all the social disorder that has resonated. I think there was reference made to discrimination and those sorts of things, and unfortunately we have seen that heightened, not just here in Edmonton and Alberta but certainly across the country, and that has been difficult to manage as well.
View Irek Kusmierczyk Profile
Lib. (ON)
When I was working for a regional innovation centre, we had started a program called Supporting Aboriginal Youth Entrepreneurship in Windsor and Essex. We had run the program for two years, and I know other regional innovation centres across Ontario run similar programs like that, but again they're concentrated around big urban areas.
How can some of the government programs—agencies like OSME, for example, the organization for small and medium-sized enterprises—bridge that gap and reach out to more communities outside of those major urban hubs? How can they provide that connection, get the awareness out and also maybe provide some mentoring and help build capacity?
Shannin Metatawabin
View Shannin Metatawabin Profile
Shannin Metatawabin
2021-06-09 19:02
The Aboriginal Financial Institutions Network has 59 members from coast to coast to coast, and they've been doing this for more than 35 years. Rocky's got one of the first AFIs that was ever created. It's in Alberta, and they connect with their communities on a daily basis. They've been developing entrepreneurs. They have deep social connections within the regions where they operate, and to create a partnership with the AFI network would instantly connect you to the community. The AFI Network has been processing government support programs for many decades now. We've processed $3 billion in lending to 50,000 loans. That's the reach of the AFI network.
This has been successful because there is a stimulus program that was in place, and this is the one I referenced with a 70% decline. Twenty years ago it was about an $80-million program with 10 urban offices and a bunch of aboriginal financial institutions. That program was reduced to $34 million.
The stimulus program, which enables a loan to be bought down so that the risk is bought down and the entrepreneur has a better chance of success, is a program that works. They've had lots of success, and the program has shown that it's an investment. For every dollar provided, there's $1.20 back in the government's treasury department—never mind about the social impacts that are felt and the reduction in social spending that happens from supporting an indigenous business.
I forgot where I was going with that.
View Pierre Paul-Hus Profile
CPC (QC)
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
We seem to be going in circles. We have been talking for just over an hour and we keep coming back to the same basic problem. There is a trust issue, but there is also the fact, as Mr. Ducharme said in his opening remarks, that there are a lot of discussions with the present government, but not many results.
I am trying today to see whether, before the end of our meeting, we can find at least one solution that could help everyone. What is interesting today is that we are with people who represent groups of entrepreneurs from indigenous communities. These are people who want to do business for everyone's benefit.
In fact, indigenous people are not the only ones who have had problems with government contracts during the COVID‑19 crisis. Many non-indigenous people have never received a reply from anyone and don't understand why. Those are questions for another time. I would actually have far preferred to get products from your communities rather than bringing products in from China.
That said, what can we do to make it work?
I spoke a moment ago about the Wendake indigenous reserve, which is next to where I am from. I know an entrepreneur who has the same business in Wendake, where he is subject to the rules and the law that apply to indigenous people, and in town, in Quebec City, where he is subject to the provincial and municipal rules.
Does saying that you are an indigenous business when an application is made create a problem from the outset?
For example, in your group, Mr. Ducharme, are there businesses that have responded to tenders without saying they were indigenous, and did that change anything?
If it was impossible not to declare it, has that been tried in the past?
If not, are there businesses that have two statuses, one as indigenous and the other as non-indigenous?
If so, do they see a difference when they send in their applications?
Results: 76 - 90 of 2766 | Page: 6 of 185

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