Government Operations Committee on Nov. 7th, 2017

[Marc LeClair]

No, we don't, and this is why. For the bid on it, there have to be joint ventures with others who have the capacity. There's no incentive for those joint ventures to occur unless you put in there a minimum indigenous requirement, or if you don't want to put a number in there, then you can talk about the quality and scope of indigenous involvement in any subcontract that might be given from a mainline contractor.

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

Should we be focusing on indigenous ownership or the amount of indigenous people employed? We heard earlier that it's 51% ownership or 33% of the workforce. I would think that we should focus more on the workforce rather than the ownership, but I'd like to hear from you where we should focus that will give the best help and value to the community.

[Marc LeClair]

Okay. I'll give the clerk the templates that they've lost over there.

Non-insured health benefits: this is claims processing, the back end of stuff. You submit a claim to the pharmacist and the pharmacist has to send it to somebody so he's going to get paid, right? It's all the back-shop, so where's the employment in that?

What we did is measure indigenous content value on that. We created the templates on jobs, on subcontracts on direct work—that could be the call centre—or the indirect work, which is what the company spends on real estate, rentals—

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

Did you develop that template by yourself with your organization or with input from others?

[Marc LeClair]

I was paid to do it for Indigenous Affairs, and then I applied it to the 2010 Olympic committee with good success. I did—

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

Would Mr. Skudra say, yes, this template works great or—

[Marc LeClair]

I'm sorry...?

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

Would Mr. Skudra say that this template works great and we should try to move forward with it?

[Max Skudra]

I haven't seen it, but from everything else you've said so far, I think it's—

[Marc LeClair]

Yes, so it's—

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

I'm just asking. I want to make sure that there's broad buy-in, that someone's not going to look at it and say, “No, it's not going to work.”

[Marc LeClair]

No, we've been applying it. That's how Membertou got its big successes and got all those contracts, because there was a requirement. Shipbuilding in Victoria.... It has been applied. The templates are there. They lost them.

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

You'll share that with us, I assume.

[Marc LeClair]

I'll give you the templates.

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

Perfect. Thank you very much.

Mr. Shipley is going to take over.

[Bev Shipley, Conservative, Lambton—Kent—Middlesex, ON]

I was going to follow up a bit on the question that my colleague asked in terms of having those resources. You said that apparently in many of the cases you don't have them in order to get the large contracts, and that's where joint ventures....

How do you work to promote within your industry, within your region, wherever that contract...? Let's use Ottawa. You've used that in terms of the project that's under way but also the ones that are on the way. How do you promote that you're interested in a joint venture so that as a small company, or even as employees for a company, you can get jobs in these projects?

[Marc LeClair]

What we found works best is to include a requirement for indigenous involvement, and guess what. Those companies find you.

We did a joint venture in Manitoba on towers, on the big bi-pole transmission line. We put in the minimum requirement, and every one of the companies that were selected as the big contractors came to us and asked us what we could do.

It works. That's the way it works in the oil and gas industry, and it works in all successful procurements.

[Bev Shipley, Conservative, Lambton—Kent—Middlesex, ON]

You're saying that there really needs to be—

[Marc LeClair]

Yes, you need to incentivize the companies.

[Bev Shipley, Conservative, Lambton—Kent—Middlesex, ON]

Okay.

Max.

[Max Skudra]

I would agree with that. It's true for one-off projects, and sometimes it is just a one-off project, but often these JVs or partnerships will be larger than just a one-project deal. Again, in Alberta, because there are some great opportunities there, Carillion purchased an indigenous-owned company called Bouchier. Bouchier owns 51% and Carillion owns 49%.

I was speaking to one of the senior team members at Carillion, which is a major multinational company based out of England. They were saying that it's the single most successful partnership that they've had in North America in over 50 years of working here.

Although it is really important to get the one-off projects—and that's a way to buy in—these partnerships will often last longer. Once you've built that relationship, built that company, bid successfully, and carried out a contract, there's a reasonable likelihood that the partnership will last to other opportunities.

[Bev Shipley, Conservative, Lambton—Kent—Middlesex, ON]

I have a number of first nations in my riding. There's no doubt in my mind...and it goes with business. You'll see some businesses in the retail market that spend a ton of money on their advertising and kind of do okay. The best ones, the most successful ones, are the ones whose success comes from word of mouth, from the people who continue to recommend them. I think that's what Marc was saying and what you were saying. Once you get that initial...then actually, they will automatically come back because of the quality.

There was a question that came up a little earlier, and it's one that I think is a concern in my riding. Having the resources as a small business to fill in, even on these joint projects, in terms of having the skilled trades and the professionals outside of the skilled trades who can be part of these projects means education.

How do we get our young people to take the initiative to look at education, have that available, and then get companies that will...? They're looking for skilled trades. I'm wondering where you're helping in that area. I think this is, from all of you, one of the most critical parts. We need to get—

[The Chair, Conservative, Tom Lukiwski]

Mr. Shipley, as I'm fond of saying here, seven-minute interventions are for both the questions and the answers.

We'll have to move on to Mr. Weir, please, but he may want to pick up on your trend.

[Erin Weir, NDP, Regina—Lewvan, SK]

If there are any responses to Mr. Shipley's last question, I'd be happy to have them.

[Max Skudra]

At CCAB, we are primarily business to business focused. Our main focus is not skills training, although I agree with you that one of the largest needs identified by aboriginal businesses is human resources. There's no question about it.

We have a skills training program. We have tools and financing for aboriginal businesses. It sort of supports entrepreneurs.