Evidence of meeting #115 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 suncor.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Director of Operations, Native Women's Association of Canada
No, I don't have that.
Liberal
Majid Jowhari Liberal Richmond Hill, ON
Okay. Thank you.
Let's go to Mr. McIntyre and Ms. Flood.
Let me start by congratulating Suncor for achieving gold standard and for their 50% increase in spending available for aboriginal groups.
Specifically, I'd like to get an understanding of the number of vendors that Suncor has as a subcontractor or as a direct vendor who are from indigenous communities or employ 50% plus one of the indigenous population.
The reason I'm asking that question is that I'm trying to get an understanding of whether the growth has come from doing more business with a select group of businesses, or whether you are actually expanding your base. A total number of vendors and the percentage who are indigenous would help me get a better understanding.
Vice-President, Supply Chain and Field Logistics, Suncor Energy Inc.
I don't have the history of the number of vendors, but I can say on the 197 that we interfaced with, that is a material growth, so it's not.... Our spending has is not just increased in total, but it's also increased with the number of companies we've done business with.
I don't know if we have the stats here.
Vice-President, Government Relations, Suncor Energy Inc.
No, we don't have any stats. We'd have to get back to you on that.
Liberal
Majid Jowhari Liberal Richmond Hill, ON
I'd appreciate it. It would be good to know that out of x number of vendors, 197 of them are categorized indigenous, and this is the spending for that number. We would be able to see whether the base is growing.
Okay, so my last question back at Suncor regards the hindrances you are seeing, specifically dealing with the PSAB. What are the challenges you see, and what are the opportunities for us to be able to amend that program to help you better in getting access and improving your...?
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Tom Lukiwski
Make it a very brief answer if you could, Mr. McIntyre and Ms. Flood.
We've only got about 30 seconds.
Vice-President, Supply Chain and Field Logistics, Suncor Energy Inc.
Okay.
To reframe the question, what could we do to make aboriginal entrepreneurs and communities more successful in—
Liberal
Majid Jowhari Liberal Richmond Hill, ON
What changes can we make in the policy to help you improve the access?
Vice-President, Government Relations, Suncor Energy Inc.
I would say it would be in some of the work that's being done on the policies, because they actually have unintended consequences because they put up some barriers. I don't have a specific example, but there are areas which, if you look at them through more of an economic lens, so you're looking at....
I think the environmental monitoring is a really good one in the sense that it is actually a growth area, but if the regulations, the monitoring, and all of the conditions around that are not actually going to work in the context of having aboriginal communities doing that because of capacity issues or whatever, working much more closely trying to figure out how to link some of those types of things together will be really important going forward.
Conservative
NDP
Erin Weir NDP Regina—Lewvan, SK
Thank you.
When Mr. McCauley was asking Mr. Cheechoo about provincial and municipal best practices, it looked as though Ms. Flood had a point she wanted to make, so I would just try to give her the opportunity to do so if that's the case.
Vice-President, Government Relations, Suncor Energy Inc.
No, I'm good. Thanks.
Erin Weir NDP Regina—Lewvan, SK
Okay.
I'll ask about something else then. Something we've been looking at is whether and how the federal government should score contractors on past performance to inform future contracting. I'm interested in knowing how Suncor approaches that process, especially given that you've spoken about building these long-term business relationships.
Vice-President, Supply Chain and Field Logistics, Suncor Energy Inc.
First of all, in scoring the work that's done, we look at whether they may be a performer worthy of consideration going forward. We look at the three classic measurements of any project work, and we have a very important fourth one. Most projects are measured in terms of the schedule, the quality of the work, and the cost. Safety trumps all of that for us, so we look at a scorecard that looks at their safety record, performance on schedule, quality of the work done, and the cost.
We do have a qualification selection criteria template that we give to all companies. I have it in front of me here. It's the 10% that I talked to you about that helps with the qualification process going in. We have expectations coming in and expectations against which we measure the work done. The record we've had with aboriginal groups is no different from what we have had with non-aboriginal groups on those four categories.
NDP
Erin Weir NDP Regina—Lewvan, SK
Okay, so would past suppliers of Suncor have a grade or a score or something on file that you would explicitly factor in when considering their future bids?
Vice-President, Supply Chain and Field Logistics, Suncor Energy Inc.
Yes, it is certainly considered. Past performance is an indicator of the future, so if an aboriginal or non-aboriginal company comes in and makes a bid, we'll take into consideration not just what they promise on paper but also what their past performance has been.
With regard to the point I think you're getting to, if they have a sustained record of very good performance, I would entertain a strategic relationship. I'm not going to do three bids and a buy every two years, and quite frankly for any company, including aboriginal, that's a great position to be in for investment in people and capital and knowing that they have a longer-term business arrangement with us.
NDP
Erin Weir NDP Regina—Lewvan, SK
You say for any company, so would you extend that logic to the federal government as well?
Vice-President, Supply Chain and Field Logistics, Suncor Energy Inc.
I would.
If you were a vendor of mine, your perspective should be the same as well.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Tom Lukiwski
Colleagues, we have some additional time before we go into committee business.
If any of you around the table have questions, we can go to three seven-minute interventions, starting with the government side.
Mr. Weir, you're certainly able as well if we have any....
Certainly, we'll have three interventions. We'll go to the government, the official opposition, and Mr. Weir, starting with Mr. Peterson.
Liberal
Kyle Peterson Liberal Newmarket—Aurora, ON
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you to our participants for being here with us this morning. It's very much appreciated.
I want to start with Suncor. Frankly, I think you're coming across as more modest than you need to be. Your relationship with aboriginals is much more than just a procurement relationship or supplier relationship of course. It's much more than a business relationship. It's much more than a business partnership, although it's all those things. It's part of your culture, isn't it?
Maybe you can take the opportunity to expand on that. I think it's important for us in the government to realize that these things don't happen overnight. It's been a committed effort, I think, for over 40 years by Suncor to develop the aboriginal partnerships that you have, and there are no quick fixes really, are there?
Maybe you can elaborate more on how it goes to the very culture of Suncor. I know about Suncor from reading up about it little bit and being very interested in industry for a long period of time for other reasons, but how did the social goal come to be an important part of your investor relations and a part of the company overall?
Vice-President, Government Relations, Suncor Energy Inc.
Sure. I can start and then maybe Howard can answer.
One of the things that I think we've certainly recognized is that the commitment is right from the top. It's about the importance of having these relationships. We're working in these communities. They're very much part of our business and our success. It's not good enough to just have a few people in the organization who basically are responsible for the relationships. We've really broadened that out in looking at ways of, first of all, really having those respectful relationships. Second, it's about creating the trust so that we can actually have the tough conversations when we need to have them. Also, it's really about learning together.
What often happens, I think, where we've hired and have learned this—it does take some time, and hopefully people can leapfrog—is the idea that if we go in and think we know what's best, we would be looking at it just from our perspective, from a business perspective. You have to actually be looking at it from their perspective as well, and they bring a different perspective to the table. I think what it means is that you have to listen differently, and you have to show up differently. Sometimes it takes a lot longer in order to work with the communities than it does if you want to just negotiate a deal, necessarily. You have to be able to understand why that is, and it's built on trust and respect.
I think that has permeated through our culture at Suncor. We're still continuing to do this. This is not an easy thing to do, but it certainly is worthwhile, and I think our employees see the investment and they as well really feel that it's important.
Vice-President, Supply Chain and Field Logistics, Suncor Energy Inc.
Yes, this isn't a program. It's a dimension of who we are. It makes sense. In business, I often use the difference between commitment and compliance. This is a commitment that we have. It's who we are. It's the way we do things. We entrench this philosophy in the newest hires we have, and throughout their careers with Suncor it's meant to carry through.
We've talked about attaining diversity in government and in business and whatnot, and we're at a point in Suncor where we want to leverage diversity. It's not as if we don't have a diverse supplier base, with diversity in gender and diversity in people with experience of different cultures. We also have a mandate to start bringing together these focus groups, for lack of a better term, and saying collectively what we can do better or differently going forward. It's in our hands, and we need to leverage that going forward, but to Ginny's point, if this were a program, it would die on the vine. This is a long-term commitment, and that's just the way we do things in every facet of our business.
Liberal
Kyle Peterson Liberal Newmarket—Aurora, ON
Thank you for that. I appreciate the elaboration.
This is where I think that part of the perspective as a government, as a player in the procurement world, needs to perhaps take a different approach, maybe emulate Suncor in a certain way, and develop partnerships and relationships with aboriginal groups that may be able to provide services to the government.
Mr. Cheechoo, obviously you've talked about it a bit in your presentation, but can you perhaps elaborate on the approach we're taking and the reason there are these barriers? A part of those barriers is awareness. A part of the barriers, as you've said, is that aboriginal women just see this as something that's out there and may not be for them, if they even know about it at all.
Is there a way for us to develop the trust and the relationship to allow these aboriginal women in business to feel comfortable, to be aware of it, and to feel like they're part of a collaboration with us in providing services to the government. Is this something that we should be doing a lot more of?