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View Jean-Yves Duclos Profile
Lib. (QC)
Thank you, Ms. Harder, for asking the question.
I suppose and suspect you were there at the beginning of the meeting when we talked about the importance of thinking about procurement in a broad way, taking into account both the important advantages of providing services and goods to Canadians through appropriate procurement and also the economic advantages, the fact that we want procurement to be increasingly green procurement—
View Jean-Yves Duclos Profile
Lib. (QC)
That's exactly where I was going, because past the green procurement supply chain that we want to build, there is the social impact of procurement and supporting indigenous—
Roger Ermuth
View Roger Ermuth Profile
Roger Ermuth
2021-06-16 17:05
Mr. Chair, in terms of procurement strategy and what was purchased in PPE, especially during the early days of the pandemic and so on, I would defer to our colleagues at PSPC in terms of what the rationale was there.
In terms of the social procurement, obviously a lot of work is going on and obviously a lot more work still needs to be done. There has been, in terms of the Nunavut agreement, some work done up north, some really big steps up north. Ongoing work with Indigenous Services Canada, PSPC and indigenous reference groups is going on to look at how we can move this forward.
Finally, I would note that the recently released Treasury Board directive on the management of procurement has also re-emphasized or refocused procurement planning to look at market access and allow socio-economic priorities.
Charles-Antoine St-Jean
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Charles-Antoine St-Jean
2021-06-15 17:00
Thank you very much for that question.
I think we saw that the last budget was talking about investing a lot more money in tracking the tax data, getting better systems and getting more legal firepower to the CRA to help combat tax evasion. This is the way we read the announcement from the government, which we support, but I will let my colleague Bruce Ball comment especially on the small business tax.
Bruce Ball
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Bruce Ball
2021-06-15 17:01
Maybe I'll start with the first part of the question. I do know that a lot of businesses took exception, I guess, to the suggestion that they were somehow doing something wrong, and I'd agree that the majority aren't.
The issue is the underground economy. There are still business people and other people doing activities in the underground economy. Over the years we're working with CRA in trying to find ways to have these individuals or these companies come forward. Typically they're individuals, because corporations can be tracked, and there will be more of that with the registry, but it's to have these individuals come forward. We've been talking to them about education and taking advantage of the voluntary disclosure program and that kind of thing.
In addition to the money for verification, I think it's also important for the government to continue to try to get people out of the underground economy and to come forward and become compliant taxpayers.
Bruce Ball
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Bruce Ball
2021-06-15 17:04
I was listening to the conversation last week. I'm not sure that they were auditing small businesses generally.
What Mr. Gallivan said agreed with what I thought. They were doing reviews of the assistance programs, so maybe that was part of it. They were reviewing the wage subsidy applications and later the rental applications. I'm not quite sure what the audit activity would be if it wasn't around some of the support programs.
Tyler Dyck
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Tyler Dyck
2021-06-14 17:18
Yes, I do think it ends, speaking not just for ourselves but also on behalf of the other distillers. I think they feel very disheartened. This is not the Canada they stand for. I think we're all brought up to treat people well and to do our best, and with the idea that if we do good things it's not that we're doing them for a reward, but that there might be some recognition. However, when that recognition goes to big multinationals that are just that much more sophisticated, I think if you asked most people out here, they'd say, “Well, they must have had contacts in government.” That's a cynical stance, and I always hate that portion of it, but I don't know how else to explain it. You have people doing the right thing who are asking for really nothing other than to be allowed to continue doing the right thing. It's hard to explain.
Ted Gallivan
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Ted Gallivan
2021-06-10 16:48
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Let's start with one of the premises, which was COVID. During COVID, my colleague Alex MacLean, who looks after international tax and large business, never stopped. They never downtooled those audits. We continued to focus on those taxpayers while giving six months of a kind of hiatus on contact for small businesses.
The CRA did suspend its small and medium-sized enterprise audits for a full six months, and when we resumed, we did so on a more consultative basis, checking in with businesses to see if we could start.
It would be my testimony today that during COVID the situation has actually been the the opposite of the testimony you would have received. The CRA never stopped its work on high-net-worth individuals and big companies through COVID. We made a deliberate pause because we understood that small businesses were suffering during COVID. When we resumed, we tried to make it a more consultative process based on the readiness of that business to withstand an audit.
Alexandra MacLean
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Alexandra MacLean
2021-06-10 16:49
Thanks very much, Mr. Chair.
I just wanted to add how seriously we take our mandate in international and large business directorate. We have been staffing up and we have been focusing on training. As the member indicated, we are challenging very well resourced interests that have very well qualified advisors. They have very deep pockets. There is a strong focus on improving training and making sure our people are well equipped to take on the most challenging and complex tax situations.
We have also invested a lot in information technology. I think Mr. Gallivan has touched on that in some of his answers. The amount of data coming into the agency is better than it has been in the past by quite a lot. We're better able to detect relationships and transactions than we were in the past, for sure.
However, it is a challenging business. There's a lot of money at stake, as many people have mentioned during this afternoon's proceedings. A lot of resources are deployed, I guess, on both sides, but particularly in the interest of high-net-worth individuals and multinational enterprises.
I wonder if my colleagues from Finance want to highlight.... We are quite excited about some of the budget 2021 initiatives that will help us deal with base erosion.
Philip Ducharme
View Philip Ducharme Profile
Philip Ducharme
2021-06-09 17:49
Good afternoon. My name is Philip Ducharme. As director of innovation and entrepreneurship of the Canadian Council for Aboriginal Business, I want to thank you, Mr. Chair, and all the distinguished members of this committee for the opportunity to provide you with my testimony and to answer your questions.
Speaking to you from my home office, I acknowledge that the land is the traditional territory of many nations, including the Mississaugas of the Credit, the Anishinabe, the Chippewa, the Haudenosaunee and the Wendat peoples, and is now home to many other first nations, Inuit and Métis people. I am Métis, with all eight of my great-grandparents attached to Métis scrip, and I am a citizen of the Manitoba Metis Federation.
From the beginning of the pandemic, the federal government put out calls to procure personal protective equipment from businesses. As our president and CEO Ms. Tabatha Bull has noted during her appearances at House and Senate committees over the last year, numerous indigenous businesses were prepared and continue to be prepared to provide PPE to meet Canada's medical needs. Lists of such indigenous businesses were provided to many federal departments as early as March 2020, but only a small fraction of the over $6 billion in federal procurement contracts for PPE was awarded to indigenous businesses.
Over the course of the pandemic there were two RFPs that sole-sourced from indigenous businesses. In a press release of September 21, 2020, PSPC noted that seven indigenous companies were awarded contracts for non-medical face masks in one such RFP for a total of approximately $2.5 million, with an unprecedented 233 indigenous-led businesses responding. PSPC also reported that approximately $68.5 million in contracts had been awarded to self-identified indigenous businesses for requirements related to COVID-19. We understand through discussions with PSPC and through our own combing of publicly available data that this value is now slightly higher. However, we continue to be unable to obtain confirmation of the total spend to indigenous businesses on PPE.
To remedy this information gap, as suggested by Ms. Bull on February 22, I propose that this committee consider measures that would mandate government departments and agencies to report on their purchases from indigenous businesses as part of their submissions for the main estimates and the supplementary estimates. Simply put, we cannot evaluate and improve upon what we do not measure and report.
Through Supply Change, CCAB's trademarked indigenous procurement strategy, we have had continuous dialogue with indigenous businesses as it pertains to federal procurement. What we have learned is that indigenous businesses are very keen on pursuing opportunities but have had numerous challenges, including identifying those opportunities. With this in mind, we post all federal set-aside RFPs within our own aboriginal procurement marketplace.
Other challenges that indigenous businesses have identified to us include the complexity of the RFPs. A $100,000 bid requires almost the same amount of time and resources to respond to as a $10-million bid. In many bids, previous work history with the federal government is required, and without it the bid is non-compliant, making it difficult to garner new indigenous suppliers. Another key challenge we have heard is that there is no feedback on why a bid was unsuccessful. One of our indigenous business members responded to 32 federal RFPs without success, but without any feedback, they did not know where they needed to improve on their bid.
That said, I want to note that throughout my extensive career working with indigenous businesses and federal procurement, I can say that I've never had the opportunity of collaborating as closely with various federal departments, and in particular with PSPC, through OSME, as I have in the last year. Together with the various OSME regions, we have held numerous information webinars for indigenous businesses and will continue to do so. This collaboration helps indigenous businesses navigate the complexities of responding to federal bids and is one of the ways we continue to work with the federal government to support the mandate of achieving a minimum 5% indigenous procurement target.
Additionally, other measures to increase federal procurement from indigenous businesses should include ensuring that indigenous procurement targets appear in every departmental plan and every executive's professional management plan to ensure administrative leadership and fulfillment of the government's procurement targets for indigenous businesses. This change could be made administratively, without the need for legislation, through an amendment to the government's directive on performance management.
CCAB is committed to continuing to work in collaboration with the government, our members and our partners to help rebuild and strengthen the path towards reconciliation and a healthy and prosperous Canada.
Thank you for your time.
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