Government Operations Committee on Nov. 30th, 2017

[Erin Weir, NDP, Regina—Lewvan, SK]

Sure.

[Bernd Christmas]

There's another benefit that could occur if positive procurements happen. Again, our community dealt with two big issues. One was a gypsum mine that was being built down the road from us. The company came in and said that it was a unionized thing and that we had to be part of that union or the union was going to shut this thing down. We said we were an aboriginal group and these were our lands. We said, “In fact, if you don't let us into the union”—we wanted to get into the union—“this mine is not working, and 80 guys are out of business.”

What happened is they said okay. We cut a deal. We said, “Let's get our guys to pay the union dues that they're supposed to pay”, even though they didn't want to pay, and then the mine was successful.

The next thing was, again, a positive thing may not sound positive to you, but it's just driving the point home. We had to create a policy on procurement. We built a multi-million-dollar convention centre to tie into our hotel operations. The company from Cape Breton, a heavily unionized company, came in and said they were a union, they were going to bid on this, and they were going to use their workers. We had all these guys who didn't have their carpentry papers, as an example, or their plumbing papers. We said we wanted them to work on that convention centre. It's a multi-million-dollar business opportunity. The company, Joneljim Construction, eventually agreed to our demands—it's our money, too, that we're paying them—to bring in the workers.

It opened up a whole variety of things, a great relationship with the Province of Nova Scotia on bringing people who normally would go into collecting social welfare into a training program to help those guys get their papers. I wanted to highlight that as a positive way that this will also benefit our communities, if a procurement program takes those types of factors into consideration.

Thank you very much. Sorry for taking a lot of mike time.

[Erin Weir, NDP, Regina—Lewvan, SK]

No, it's really good information.

[The Chair, Conservative, Tom Lukiwski]

You have about 30 seconds left.

[Erin Weir, NDP, Regina—Lewvan, SK]

Are there other witnesses who have thoughts on these questions?

[Susan Targett]

I'd like to add that one of the communities we work with is working to develop a modern treaty. They don't currently have one, but they also happen to be the most successful out of all of the groups. They have 80% employment, while one of them has 67% unemployment. I guess the learning in that go-forward approach of working with government, and what that looks like for them—because they are such a highly successful community—are some of the examples that I think need to be looked at and evaluated for opportunities to learn.

[The Chair, Conservative, Tom Lukiwski]

Thank you very much.

Madam Shanahan, you have seven minutes, please.

[Brenda Shanahan, Liberal, Châteauguay—Lacolle, QC]

Thank you very much, Chair.

Thank you to all the witnesses who are here today. It's fascinating to understand more about what's going on in this area.

Has anybody had success with the PSAB? We've heard some success stories, but they seem to have happened almost by accident instead of deliberately. I was especially disturbed, Mr. Derouard, by your story. I think it was you who had registered with the government website, and had crickets—no, sorry; was that Mr. Damm who had crickets for 23 years?

I'd like to understand a little bit more about this. Mr. Damm, has there been any success with this program at all?

[Sam Damm]

Yes, I think there has been success from a FoxWise perspective. As I said, it's a door-opener. People are interested in talking to you about your business and they want to meet with first nation companies, but we've seen it all from putting in a response.

The responses to these massive RFPs are very expensive to produce. I don't know if the government has a handle on how much these things cost, but it takes tens of hours of work to put these in.

You put it in. You win. You get a supply arrangement or a standing offer, and it's set aside. Everyone is high-fiving. Two years later, you've done no work through that program.

[Brenda Shanahan, Liberal, Châteauguay—Lacolle, QC]

I'd like to understand a bit more about that. What happens there? Why? What is your contact? What's your interaction?

[Sam Damm]

There's typically a set-aside stream or indigenous stream, and a non-indigenous stream. The non-indigenous stream tends to get all the work. My company is based in Ottawa, and we have been based here for almost 18 years. The success that we've had is not all based on set-aside, that's for sure. We'd starve if that were the case. We're a real business like any other business. We've seen it all: all the excuses, all the reasons that they can't do it, why it's not competitive. Sometimes we're scrutinized more as first nation companies because there's an expectation that we're not mature enough to deliver the work.

It wasn't all federal government and it's not all set-aside, but FoxWise has delivered maybe $100 million's worth of work to the federal government since we started. No one's calling us saying, “You're on this Industry Canada list. You're a first nations company. We want to give you work.” It's because we're knocking on the doors every day, Sales 101.

[Brenda Shanahan, Liberal, Châteauguay—Lacolle, QC]

I wonder, because it seems to have come through in the testimony that there's a lack of awareness, a lack of knowledge, or a lack of competency in the evaluation criteria. Something seems to be wrong on the evaluation side.

We've heard one recommendation from Mr. Willy that it become mandatory, but what about on the evaluation side? Does some kind of a champion program make sense?

I'm wondering what your interactions have been with the mainstream development agencies, the local development agencies, the Business Development Bank of Canada, and other agencies, if you've had any experiences that way.

[Sam Damm]

Well, from my perspective, it's just regular business. I don't know. I approached the Business Development Bank of Canada that you're talking about as any other business and I got a loan from them at one point as I was developing my business.

We've had lots of great relationships with companies like IBM, HP, etc., but I think part of it is just due to the fact that I treat this like a regular business. The set-aside is an afterthought.

It was very strong. I would say the set-aside program was much stronger 10 years ago. There was a lot happening, including trade shows in department lobbies, lots of outreach, and the PSAB. Every department had a PSAB performance coordinator who was very active in introducing the first nation companies to the departments, etc., but that has all gone away.

[Brenda Shanahan, Liberal, Châteauguay—Lacolle, QC]

That's interesting.

[Bernd Christmas]

I think it's a safety valve. I think that's what maybe people are looking for too, because again, you don't want this to be willy-nilly.

Dealing with Enbridge, as an example, we have an engineering company and construction company that's been registered with Enbridge, so we have a standing offer now with them. They invited us to register and become part of their system. Before we got the standing offer, they came to our offices. They wanted to see all the usual stuff that they want to see. They wanted to see our fabrication yards, and so on and so forth, and we showed that to them. We showed them all the big safety manuals that you need, and they were happy. They checked off their boxes—they had all these lists—and then they went back. We got the standing offer, and I swear we got our first contract within a week. That's how fast it was.

That's why maybe a recommendation would be that there has to be someone within PSAB, in whatever the bureaucracy is, who goes and validates these companies and says, “Okay, this is a technology company. This is a construction company. This is a furniture company. This is an aerospace company.” He or she goes and makes sure it's all there, all the stuff that's required, and then there's no grey area that Mr. Willy alluded to earlier. There's more comfort.

[Brenda Shanahan, Liberal, Châteauguay—Lacolle, QC]

There's more comfort because there's more verification on the ground.

[Bernd Christmas]

Exactly. It's a verification system.

[John Derouard]

Specifically to PSAB, INAC has told me that if it's going to an aboriginal community that's 80% populated or more, they first put it out as a set-aside. If no capacity exists, then they go to open bidding.

I have one specific commodity that I had a small success with. Now that they know that commodity exists, you'd think that the next time they procured that commodity to an aboriginal community, they'd know that. They don't. It came back out as an open bid. They find out that it is going to an aboriginal community, and you prove it to them, but then they interpret it in a way that they don't have to use it.

[The Chair, Conservative, Tom Lukiwski]

Thanks very much.

I'm afraid we're going to have to move on.

Just for clarification purposes and for my own benefit, is it Mr. “Willy” or Mr. “Wiley”? What is the correct pronunciation?

[Sean Willy]

It's Mr. Willy.

[The Chair, Conservative, Tom Lukiwski]

Thank you. Normally I'm the one who butchers last names. I was the only one this time who got it right, so thank you, Mr. Willy.

Mr. Shipley, you have five minutes, please.

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

Thank you very much, witnesses, for coming.

In the learning here, it was important that we had the government bureaucracy here first. The more significant part is that we've had the business people here. I thank you. Others as well will be coming to help us understand.

Mr. Derouard, in terms of the interpretation, I have to tell you that at times we're having difficulty not just in this department but in other ones where there are regulations. The regulations don't change, but what seems to happen is around the interpretation of those regulations. Again, it doesn't matter what government it is; we're just talking about governments.

In that case, has there been a change? Is this the way it's always been? If so, what sort of steps—others can jump in, please—have you taken to try to change this for your benefit and to help us as elected people who have your organizations within our communities?

[Sam Damm]

I'm not really trying to change anything. I kind of shuck and jive with the changes that are put forth to me and my company. I think the only way we've been providing changes is by delivering second-to-none service, quality, and pricing. I haven't done a lot of lobbying to get anything changed. It's just “Here it is. This is the playing field.” I have to work through it. That's been my approach.

[John Derouard]

I've lobbied. I've talked to what I would assume was a manager in procurement policy. She basically came back to me and said that if we want it to change as it exists, aboriginal businesses have to band together and lobby for it.

To me, it's totally wrong. It's pretty clear how it's set out.

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

Has that been a consistent message over time? That's shocking, actually.