Evidence of meeting #106 for Government Operations and Estimates in the 42nd Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was businesses.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Liberal
Nick Whalen Liberal St. John's East, NL
If you're doing an audit, what are you auditing? How many times have you audited? Have you ever disallowed a business because they failed to meet the audit?
Director General, Economic and Business Opportunities, Lands and Economic Development, Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development
We do post-audits of PSAB, and we do verifications. In the past, we have disqualified four businesses. It's not a common thing, but we do verifications. We check based on generally established criteria on entry into the PSAB database.
Liberal
Nick Whalen Liberal St. John's East, NL
In the House, a lot of the debate around certain bills this year has been on some of the sexist categories within the Indian Act, in terms of determining status.
I'm wondering if you guys have done, or if the department has done, a gender-based analysis of how PSAB affects businesses that are women-owned indigenous businesses versus male-owned indigenous businesses.
Conservative
Assistant Deputy Minister, Lands and Economic Development, Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development
I don't think we've done an analysis within the PSAB data of businesses, and Mohan can correct me if I'm wrong.
We do gender-based analysis on aboriginal businesses at large, and how they compare with the broader workforce and business workforce. We know that the number of women entrepreneurs is growing. It's not where we'd like it to be. We do have a line of sight when we do our programming and our policy work that we want it to be gender balanced.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Tom Lukiwski
Thank you very much.
Mr. McCauley, you have eight minutes, please.
Conservative
Kelly McCauley Conservative Edmonton West, AB
Good morning.
I want to follow up a bit on what Mr. Whalen was talking about, but on a different bent.
We talked about 51% ownership and 33% workforce participation.
Have we reviewed those numbers? Have we talked to the businesses to see if those numbers are too high or too low? I'm wondering whether we are excluding some very good indigenous businesses or other businesses that may have 28% or 29% workforce participation, and therefore excluding those people from bidding on PSAB projects.
Assistant Deputy Minister, Lands and Economic Development, Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development
If those numbers were established when PSAB was established, I think, as part of the modernization review, we need to be asking ourselves and asking businesses the question in and around—
Conservative
Kelly McCauley Conservative Edmonton West, AB
Have you ever heard feedback that it's too high or too low?
Assistant Deputy Minister, Lands and Economic Development, Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development
I haven't. I don't know whether it's come through in any other.... I don't know whether OSME has heard either.
I think some small corporations struggle to get to that percentage, so we encourage joint venturing. That then allows smaller indigenous businesses to partner up.
Conservative
Kelly McCauley Conservative Edmonton West, AB
It's good that you're doing that, but I know that one issue both indigenous and non-indigenous have in dealing with the government is the bureaucracy, the paperwork. Now it sounds like we're adding another layer to them. Someone could be a very good employer with a high percentage of indigenous workers but not meeting the threshold. Now they're going to have to go out and scramble to find a joint venture. I'm glad that you are looking at this as part of your modernization.
I'm wondering—and this is a difficult question for you—about Indigenous and Northern Affairs overlooking this directive. Should it be with PSPC? Are you comfortable with it? Are we getting the best results by having it in Indigenous and Northern Affairs as opposed to PSPC?
Assistant Deputy Minister, Lands and Economic Development, Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development
I see that as a partnership.
Certainly INAC takes on a certain portion of the PSAB and has expertise in order to work with aboriginal businesses and federal departments, but it's done in partnership with PSPC. When we go out and offer sessions to federal departments, it's done jointly. We're collecting the information, but we see it as a shared partnership. It helps spread out the socialization of the PSAB strategy.
Conservative
Kelly McCauley Conservative Edmonton West, AB
With the split in INAC between services, how is that going to affect how you're able to follow up on or deliver these services to indigenous businesses? Is it going to help, hinder, or is it a wait and see?
Assistant Deputy Minister, Lands and Economic Development, Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development
We're not expecting that it's going to change the direction we're taking. The whole division of the department is to get to better outcomes. PSAB will stay as a strategy, and it's supported.
Conservative
Assistant Deputy Minister, Lands and Economic Development, Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development
No.
Conservative
Kelly McCauley Conservative Edmonton West, AB
You mentioned that the set-aside business has gone up 100%, which is great, and the non-set-aside has gone up 100% since 2009. What has changed? How did we achieve that? Is that acceptable growth? Did we have higher expectations?
Assistant Deputy Minister, Lands and Economic Development, Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development
I'm not sure whether I would say it's a value of acceptable growth. What I would say is that there's been an awful lot of work to go out and speak to businesses and let them know about the strategy.
Conservative
Kelly McCauley Conservative Edmonton West, AB
Is there something specific that we've done that's helped us to get to 100% growth that we should focus on? Is it just better recognition out in the communities?
Assistant Deputy Minister, Procurement, Department of Public Works and Government Services
I would say that you have to look at it with a couple of different lenses. We're working very closely with the client departments to review their procurement strategies and to look actively for opportunities where we can bring in the socio-economic objectives of indigenous procurement. We're doing outreach activities as well, business matching in Canadian communities, and one-on-one supplier discussions.
Conservative
Kelly McCauley Conservative Edmonton West, AB
The 100% growth, I think, is over a seven-year period. Did it start out at 2%, and then it climbed, or have we plateaued with growth with this—
Assistant Deputy Minister, Lands and Economic Development, Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development
I don't think we've plateaued with growth. Our—
Conservative
Kelly McCauley Conservative Edmonton West, AB
How has it been? Is it increasing every year? Are we seeing better growth over the last couple of years as we're engaging more, or was all the growth a few years ago?
Assistant Deputy Minister, Lands and Economic Development, Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development
We're seeing more businesses registering into the registry so that they can avail themselves of the procurement possibilities. There's more socialization, and I think companies are seeing that there's potential through federal procurement.
Conservative
Kelly McCauley Conservative Edmonton West, AB
You mentioned, Ms. Murphy, about social benefit requirements making it easier for indigenous companies to obtain contracts. That's one of the things we've heard from various witnesses, the difficulty, the bureaucratic burden that makes it very difficult for any company to bid for contracts.
How is it going to make it easier, as you mentioned, for indigenous businesses if we're adding another layer of bureaucracy and red tape?