Francis Drouin at the Government Operations and Estimates Committee

On November 2nd, 2017. See this statement in context.

November 2nd, 2017 / 12:45 p.m.

Liberal

Francis Drouin Liberal Glengarry—Prescott—Russell, ON

Thank you.

I want to touch on some of the barriers for SMEs that I've heard about over my short life as an MP and how we ensure the promotion of the procurement strategy for aboriginal businesses.

I know it's an INAC thing, but does PSPC work with INAC to ensure that other suppliers are aware of this particular partnership with aboriginal businesses?

I want to touch on the IT side. In PSPC—it's SSC now—corporate references was one of the barriers we mentioned. We know that in the past few years aboriginal businesses have been on the rise, especially on the IT side. We find limits in terms of experience in some of the RFPs, which state that you have to have a minimum of 10 or 15 years of experience. That puts a limit on young businesses, on millennials such as me. I'm just wondering how we mash this all up together. Is an analysis done with PSPC, and how do we promote PSAB, the procurement strategy for aboriginal business, better with other suppliers?

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