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Results: 91 - 105 of 2766
Philip Ducharme
View Philip Ducharme Profile
Philip Ducharme
2021-06-09 19:06
A number of our businesses have applied to the PSAB program. Within the PSAB program, you are identifying that you are an indigenous-owned business. They never got the PSAB contracts, but when they applied to open tenders within the federal government, they've been successful in the contracts, so I think there is an unconscious bias on indigenous businesses within the procurement evaluations.
When you talked about one of the concrete things that needs to happen, it has to be past the mandate. It has to be within the executive and within management's reporting requirements. They have to have that target set right in there. If they have that target, they're going to make sure that it is happening.
Within the corporate world, Suncor has done that. That came from the the top down. They went to all the buying managers and told them that this was what they needed to do, and that if they didn't reach it, their evaluation was not going to be 100% successful and potentially they wouldn't have the bonuses as well.
That's the one thing that really needs to happen with the federal government for indigenous procurement. It has to be incentivized and have teeth to it.
View Pierre Paul-Hus Profile
CPC (QC)
I understand what you're saying. My philosophy, instead of imposing quotas, would be to find a solution to increase the effectiveness of the process in a more natural way. When you impose something on people, that is often when there is more resistance. However, if there is no choice, certainly that will have to be done.
I think Mr. Metatawabin wanted to say something also.
Shannin Metatawabin
View Shannin Metatawabin Profile
Shannin Metatawabin
2021-06-09 19:08
Rather than trying to have a paintbrush approach to it, saying that everybody is going to be fair under a system that doesn't have an indigenous procurement process is not going to work, because we are living in a discriminatory system already. There's no way that our entrepreneurs will be able to enter that door without having this door available to them.
We have to really just become good at creating this door. Do it in the right way and implement mandatory targets that are transparent so that everybody can see them. Once Canadians know that by investing in an indigenous entrepreneur, they'll see that a program for indigenous business that was $9 billion in 1996 was $17 billion last year and is looking to be about $40 billion in another 25 years, and you're going to see a lot more of the clear water type of business opportunities. If indigenous people have access to capital, have the right skills and are able to impact their communities, they are going to invest wisely.
We have to do this right. We have to foster the culture of awareness in the government.
Donald (Rocky) Sinclair
View Donald (Rocky) Sinclair Profile
Donald (Rocky) Sinclair
2021-06-09 19:09
To present the problem, there isn't one paintbrush that's going to solve the problem for us because of the historical complexities in our communities. We're talking about not just the first nations; it's indigenous procurement. There are lots of complexities. There are regional challenges, and urban versus rural, and sophistication versus start-up. There are huge complexities.
Would there be any thought given to a concierge-type of service, a design that could meet those complexities, whether it be done regionally or provincially or some other way, to recognize the complexities and the differences within our own business community and our communities in general?
View Francis Drouin Profile
Lib. (ON)
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I too want to say that I will be speaking with you and asking you questions on the unceded territory of the Algonquin and Anishinabe.
As Mr. McCauley said at the beginning, you've been more than patient to spend time with us. Thank you so much.
I've listened to this conversation, and it is really interesting. I've heard some comments that I've heard before.
My question would probably be to Mr. Ducharme first.
You mentioned that a lot of indigenous businesses you've spoken to are sometimes simply not aware of the federal opportunity until the RFP is out. You mentioned that you are working with the OSME office, and there seems to be engagement.
Are you mostly working with small businesses, or are they large businesses that are trying to do business with the government? I'm asking that because from an SME perspective, having somebody watching or monitoring the Buyandsell website 24-7 is physically impossible. They have to be doing something else.
You mentioned training. I'd be curious to hear what type of training we could do, from the federal government perspective, on how to best respond to RFPs.
Philip Ducharme
View Philip Ducharme Profile
Philip Ducharme
2021-06-09 19:12
Thank you.
Again, it is a very hard system to navigate. As I said, within the aboriginal procurement marketplace that we've created at CCAB and Supply Change, we go to the Buyandsell. There isn't a consistent way with Buyandsell to show which ones are the PSAB companies. For RFPs, you go in and you do a search, and it all depends, because each one of the procurement managers has a different way of doing it. If there was one standardized way that would identify a PSAB program and check it off, it would be easy to search that. I think that would be a simple solution.
As for the larger businesses, we do have larger businesses that are trying to get federal procurement contracts, but one area they run into is the bid bonds. If the federal government looks at those bid bonds in the future, is there a way of maybe doing a 10% holdback on the contract instead of having to have that bid bond?
Ms. Suitor also mentioned insurance. Each time you apply for insurance, you could get an increase in insurance according to the amount of the contract you had.
Those are some areas that we can work with.
On the training that we do, we're a small team at CCAB. I think Shannin also mentioned that we're all coming together. This is a lot bigger than one organization, but we have been working a lot with it.
I think with the government, there are the needs.... We've done a webinar where we actually did the reverse, so that the suppliers would evaluate the RFPs. That would help them in a way as well, just by knowing what they need to do when they're actually applying to the RFPs.
With regard to training that we can provide to our businesses, I think that can go through CANDO, and also with NACCA and the financial officers that they have.
Shannin Metatawabin
View Shannin Metatawabin Profile
Shannin Metatawabin
2021-06-09 19:14
On training specifically, for the indigenous businesses, I think we are good with the AFI network interfacing with the indigenous entrepreneur and providing training. We could use some more support to ensure that we can add to our complement so that they can do the right work.
Really, the problem is within the government itself. Governments have always had a problem with aligning their own systems. You have multiple programs and services that are being done at different levels of the government. There are almost 200-plus economic development programs that ISC counted that weren't aligned. If we can get everybody to align.... It's kind of like a centralized decentralized system. You have PSPC that's providing a service for all the departments, and they're all decentralized, but a more centralized system would work, with each of them doing their own procurement.
It's a really mixed-up system, and it needs a lot of cultural awareness. If we can give the departments a reason to want to do it, they will do it.
View Francis Drouin Profile
Lib. (ON)
Thank you.
Mr. Ducharme, I think you said that Defence Construction Canada seems to be doing a better job of engaging. I'd like to know what they are doing that perhaps the Government of Canada could adopt as a whole.
Philip Ducharme
View Philip Ducharme Profile
Philip Ducharme
2021-06-09 19:15
They seem to be going into the directory and looking at the businesses. A lot of our businesses say that they've had a call from Defence Construction Canada. They're not going in with a one-keyword search and saying, “Okay, that's it. We're not going to go past to another company.” What they do is they look to see if there's a possibility, and they're reaching out to our business members, saying that they have this opportunity coming up and asking whether this something that is going to be of interest to them.
Again, so many times everything is just through one narrow tunnel. When you're looking, you have to expand the search. My understanding from what I've heard from our suppliers is that Defence Construction Canada is doing that.
View Julie Vignola Profile
BQ (QC)
Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
I have listened closely to the witnesses.
I note that we have received 30,000 pages of data from the businesses that participate in the federal contractors program for employment equity. That data, which had to be provided by the businesses, concerned the number of women, members of First Nations and visible minorities, and persons with disabilities, among others. I thought that all these statistics must also have made the process more complicated for businesses.
I thought, as you said, that only the big businesses were able to get around like this on the websites, which are real labyrinths. In short, to encourage diversity, SMEs have to be supported as well.
The impression I get is that you believe the system is too complicated for small actors like the SMEs of the world. In concrete terms, what could truly facilitate the work that SMEs do to get contracts?
Shannin Metatawabin
View Shannin Metatawabin Profile
Shannin Metatawabin
2021-06-09 19:21
I would like to start.
During my opening remarks, I said that we're working on a business plan for an indigenous-led institution. I think that would be more of a concierge sort of service in working with the departments, understanding what's coming down the pipeline, getting the businesses ready and also doing some educational programming and working with the partners. You need somebody who is sort of stickhandling everything in the middle.
I think the big part that I keep bringing up is that the government just does not want to change. There needs to be some really big-time awareness. I'll bring up Australia again. They have reconciliation action plans that the corporate world, government and everybody buys into. Also, they have to really outline exactly what they're going to do to make a difference in the indigenous lives. It's almost like an IBA, an impact benefit agreement. It's about looking at training, business support services, processes and awareness within their organizations. This needs to take place within other governments.
Marnie Suitor
View Marnie Suitor Profile
Marnie Suitor
2021-06-09 19:22
I'd like to add a comment. I think it would be important to scale the requirements in that RFP to the nature of the opportunity. It would take some time to ensure that it's not a sort of blanket approach for large versus small. There are some nuances that could change within that RFP requirement.
View Matthew Green Profile
NDP (ON)
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Both Ms. Suitor and Mr. Sinclair have been kind of cut off on some of what was remaining on their questions.
I'd like to turn it over to you, beginning with Ms. Suitor, to just add anything that has been front of mind but that time didn't permit you to fully answer in terms of points that you want this committee to take away.
Marnie Suitor
View Marnie Suitor Profile
Marnie Suitor
2021-06-09 19:23
Thank you for that. I did want to share an example with you that I think will speak to capacity, programming and training, etc.
Several years ago, I was asked to write a business plan and a feasibility study and then eventually manage a small business incubator for a first nation in the heart of the oil sands. The funding had been secured. We moved forward with developing that small business incubator.
I was there on the ground every day, working with entrepreneurs on various stages of their business, be that marketing, responding to RFPs or creating partnerships—just providing that whole host of development services for them. We were making some significant traction. We had about 16 really healthy businesses that were up and running and making a difference, not just in the community but within the industry and its sector entirely.
Then, of course, the three-year funding agreement ran out. It was not renewed. Unfortunately, that business incubator went away and left not only the 16 businesses struggling, which were really just starting to get their feet under them, but so many others that were in the midst of start-up and weren't able to move forward.
That's a sad example of the funding and the nature of the funding cycles and how that affects progress.
View Matthew Green Profile
NDP (ON)
Unfortunately, I'm going to run out of time, which is why I fought for my earlier time.
Ms. Suitor, was that private sector funding or was that federal funding for the incubator?
Results: 91 - 105 of 2766 | Page: 7 of 185

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