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Results: 106 - 120 of 2766
Marnie Suitor
View Marnie Suitor Profile
Marnie Suitor
2021-06-09 19:25
I want to say rural development, but I would have to look back through my files and provide that information to you.
View Kelly McCauley Profile
CPC (AB)
Thanks, Mr. Chair. It's five, not two and a half.
Mr. Ducharme, I think it was you who mentioned that one of the businesses you dealt with had the capability to provide masks and had bid on some of the COVID business.
I'm sorry. Was it you who brought that up?
View Kelly McCauley Profile
CPC (AB)
Yes. Did you ever receive any feedback on why a business like that did not get the contract, or similar businesses? Was it price, or was there just no response?
Shannin Metatawabin
View Shannin Metatawabin Profile
Shannin Metatawabin
2021-06-09 19:27
They basically said that it was national security confidentiality. They weren't able to provide any feedback to the business owner, other than to say that they weren't eligible. This was even though they had invested in a facility to be built on a first nation, hired first nation people, and invested quite heavily in the equipment, thinking that the procurement process would work. There were no indicators within the process to select for any social impacts to say that somebody would score higher for being on a first nation, hiring first nations, impacting first nations—
View Kelly McCauley Profile
CPC (AB)
Good lord. That's garbage. I'm sorry. We see this again and again when, in order to sole-source something to a preferred vendor or someone they want, it's national security. I highly doubt there's a national security issue—and I think you would agree with me—in buying masks and supporting an indigenous business.
I'm wondering if there's any low-hanging fruit here. It's probably very obvious, but for the record, is there any low-hanging fruit or any quick changes the government can make to better help indigenous businesses procure government contracts? We talked about the insurance one. We could change that, because we heard this before—three years ago—but I'm wondering what other low-hanging fruit the government could make immediate changes on.
Philip Ducharme
View Philip Ducharme Profile
Philip Ducharme
2021-06-09 19:28
I think it would be regarding the RFPs and scaling the RFPs to the amount of work that's done if you want to include more of the small businesses. To respond to an RFP with the federal government, you almost need a full-time employee who's a proposal writer. I think if that were geared to the size of the contract, that would increase opportunities for the smaller indigenous businesses.
View Kelly McCauley Profile
CPC (AB)
This was a theme that came up repeatedly when we did the same study three and a half years ago. Unfortunately, nothing has changed since then. Whether it's women-led business, indigenous-led business or other SMEs, what we hear is that for Amazon for their HQ2 it's an eight-page RFP, whereas for them it's 100 pages for a roll of toilet paper. It's silly.
Is there anything else in terms of low-hanging fruit? Obviously, scalability is one. Is there anything else we could implement relatively painlessly and quickly, if there is such a thing within government?
Philip Ducharme
View Philip Ducharme Profile
Philip Ducharme
2021-06-09 19:29
I think it's the company that Shannin was talking about. I mean, that company invested their own money in it. They got no funding from the government to help them start this manufacturing plant. They brought the cost of their stuff down to 10¢ or 12¢ per mask. You might be able to get it from a foreign company for 6¢ to 7¢, but when you look at it, you're spending that 10¢ to 12¢ per mask here in Canada, which in turn is hiring indigenous people. That money is staying in Canada instead of going outside it.
I think that would be a really quick one. I would look at that company right now. They have 20 million masks sitting, because within that RFP they had to guarantee that if the government came to look at their warehouse, they would have that in stock.
View Kelly McCauley Profile
CPC (AB)
Ms. Suitor, I'm going to bounce back to you, please. You've dealt with energy businesses a lot. Again, on a previous study, we heard repeatedly how the energy companies—Suncor, etc.—were setting a very high bar for indigenous participation and were achieving it.
Can you give us some examples of what they're doing right that perhaps the government should make steps to copy, when they're not trying to shut down the oil business?
Marnie Suitor
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Marnie Suitor
2021-06-09 19:31
The one that is very obvious to me is that within many of those resource companies, there has been an indigenous inclusion evaluation criterion within all the RFP responses. It's not about a set-aside per se, but it's about anyone responding to an RFP being able to prove that they have an indigenous inclusion policy and that it is being followed through.
Results: 106 - 120 of 2766 | Page: 8 of 185

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