Government Operations Committee on Jan. 30th, 2018

[Alexandra Mendes, Liberal, Brossard—Saint-Lambert, QC]

There's no person.

[Patrick Cheechoo]

There's just something that exists on the Internet, basically.

[Alexandra Mendes, Liberal, Brossard—Saint-Lambert, QC]

Therefore, that would be another issue that you'd recommend we pay attention to, the need for more direct person-to-person interaction.

Would that be something that you do at Suncor, having much more direct interaction?

[Virginia Flood]

Yes, I would say absolutely.

Getting back to that, one of the things is understanding the culture of the communities you're working in.

Last year or two years ago, we developed web-based training for all of our employees, and Howard mentioned that his staff were taking that. It was really developed with the aboriginal peoples. We've made it public now, but it's about understanding that issue around culture, the capabilities, and the capacity within the communities.

Again, it gets back to, if you take this one-size-fits-all approach, you're probably going to have a few successes, but not as great as they could be if you're looking at having more flexibility. It's about understanding that culture, and the departments that are working in those communities have the relationships that understand those cultures they're working within.

[Alexandra Mendes, Liberal, Brossard—Saint-Lambert, QC]

Thank you all very much.

[The Chair, Conservative, Tom Lukiwski]

We will now go to our five-minute rounds of interventions starting with Mr. Kelly.

[Pat Kelly, Conservative, Calgary Rocky Ridge, AB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Mr. Cheechoo, in your remarks you said a couple of things that struck me about the challenges faced by indigenous women entrepreneurs. You mentioned specifically access to credit, systemic poverty, and access to technology. Furthermore, you said there's a perception of federal government procurement as being about dealing with a large—I think you said—nameless, faceless bureaucracy that's difficult to reach.

On the one hand, the barriers you identified also suggest there are probably barriers to being able to bid on private sector contracts, not just government contracts. Can you identify what the specific barriers are, since we're dealing with government procurement? What are some specific barriers in government itself that you could maybe help us identify so that we may be able to make recommendations to deal with them?

[Patrick Cheechoo]

I think there was a reference to having targets or goals on what per cent of procurement would go to indigenous women. Have those tangible numbers, and then focus on outreach. It's about raising awareness on how to overcome the obstacles—or even becoming aware of the obstacles—unique to indigenous women. For example, I'm familiar with a project that we're working on with a partner called Women Building Futures. Their program for women in trades is slightly different from indigenous women in trades, because there are unique factors that you might not think about initially. For example, there are a lot of indigenous women who might need to start with how to get their ID. That's where you have to start.

It's about recognizing elements like that and then having, as part of the strategy, goals set specifically for indigenous women entrepreneurs, and what that means.

[Pat Kelly, Conservative, Calgary Rocky Ridge, AB]

Okay, I would ask Mr. McIntyre to maybe help. You gave some examples of successes you've had with procurement from indigenous businesses. You mentioned specifics on the number of retail locations that are indigenous-owned in the Petro-Canada side of your business, as well as the wind farm in southern Ontario.

What are some of the other...and the size and scale of enterprises that you have successful partnerships with? I'm thinking now more about your upstream oil and gas side, or elsewhere in your company.

[Howard McIntyre]

I'm happy to respond.

A large part of our spend is in the area of construction—providing transportation, providing workers that do some of the construction on what we call turnaround projects or new builds. That's a big piece of it.

If I look at first nations and where we spend our money, I see that in 2017 we exceeded all our goals—Mikisew Cree, $84 million; Athabasca Chipewyan, $53 million. Fort McKay is our biggest spend at $155 million, and so on going forward. We have a very diverse number of groups involved. We spend with 197 groups, and as I mentioned, we're also seeing an expansion, from something that's based predominantly in construction and maintenance, into other areas, such as environmental services and some other areas. We are trying to grow that diversity by growing knowledge and capacity of the business opportunity in those areas. Quite frankly, when we attend CCAB and some of these other events, we speak to what we see as the biggest opportunities going forward.

You mentioned some good examples in our downstream assets owned and operated by aboriginal groups, and as we continue to grow our economic presence in Canada—construction and maintenance is big today—we're diversifying into other areas.

[The Chair, Conservative, Tom Lukiwski]

Now we'll go to Mr. Drouin, for five minutes, please.

[Francis Drouin, Liberal, Glengarry—Prescott—Russell, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I want to thank each witness for being in front of us.

I have just a couple of questions for Suncor about how you've increased your capacity with indigenous suppliers and where you've had challenges in some communities to boost those numbers—or if you've had any challenges. That's actually the question. If you have, how did you solve that challenge?

Part of the reason that I ask is that in Ottawa, some companies will say they have a hard time finding indigenous companies. I've met tons that actually do the work that the companies say they can't do.

How did you work with the communities to get those numbers up?

[Howard McIntyre]

Mr. Drouin, this is a good point for me to emphasize inflect something that I've been waiting to do for this group. It's my mantra here; that is, the powers of positive deviance.

We have to spend time to find out where things are working and understand why, even if it's a minority; learn from that, and then find a way to replicate it. With examples of where things have worked, we say if this has worked over here and there was a good outcome, then how can we approach the development of an entrepreneur or business or find a way to marry this company and that company together? I'd say that a large part of our success is finding what works, the power of positive deviance, and trying to replicate it.

The challenge that we've had is that there have have been many occasions when an aboriginal group or entrepreneur has come to the table and not been fully qualified. They don't have the big plan on how they're going to source their workers, how they're going to have a trained set of workers, etc., and then sometimes they're not successful in their bid.

It's about being honest and transparent with them on why they didn't succeed, what they could have done to win that bid, and giving them some input on their business development plans and what they need to do to be successful, as opposed to just saying, you weren't successful. We've seen many companies that have been the second or third bidder. Over the years they have developed a capable workforce, an infrastructure, brought the right people on board, and then suddenly they earn the business. If we share with them why they haven't been successful, and are open and transparent, they then have something to work on and what it's going to take to win.

I can't emphasize enough that there are a lot of examples out there, and they grow every year, on what's working. If you could just assemble that group of those who are succeeding, and learn from it, then we could all collectively benefit from it.

[Francis Drouin, Liberal, Glengarry—Prescott—Russell, ON]

I suspect that the debriefing after the unsuccessful bid is not just 40 minutes. It's probably longer.

[Howard McIntyre]

It could be several meetings. But you know what, it's absolutely the right thing to do. Sometimes it's a tough message, but are message about what they can differently is very well received.

[Francis Drouin, Liberal, Glengarry—Prescott—Russell, ON]

Great. Thanks.

Mr. Cheechoo, you have quite the challenge dealing with this double minority setting, where you're dealing with indigenous companies and women-led indigenous companies specifically, or potential companies, through your association.

I'm just curious to find out more. We had previous witnesses here who have worked through national organizations and international organizations to certify whether companies have a majority of women working within the company. It's not just the CEO, but it's also the leadership. It's also the employees. They have a certification process. Do you would see it as favourable to partner with them on some of these issues?

[Patrick Cheechoo]

For sure.

As I mentioned briefly, for example, just in this process, I would like to pursue a partnership with the Canadian Council of Aboriginal Business under their PAR program, to see if we can do an enhancement to their gold, silver, bronze certification program, and include, just to brainstorm, a turquoise enhancement of it, which means indigenous women.

[Francis Drouin, Liberal, Glengarry—Prescott—Russell, ON]

Should the Government of Canada be tracking how many indigenous companies are part of that? They tell us that they're tracking, but we've heard from previous testimony that their statistics may not be as current as they should be.

[Patrick Cheechoo]

Well....

[Francis Drouin, Liberal, Glengarry—Prescott—Russell, ON]

Tracking is measuring. We need to measure whether or not our programs are working.

[Patrick Cheechoo]

Yes, if there is any kind of tracking around indigenous women, it needs to be enhanced, but I don't think there's an easy way to find out today. With the development, that should be a goal, to specifically find ways to enhance, monitor, and build procurement access for indigenous women.

[The Chair, Conservative, Tom Lukiwski]

We have Mr. McCauley for five minutes, please.

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

Mr. Cheechoo, you've mentioned—and we've heard repeatedly from other witnesses—the difficulty everyone has in dealing with the government in procurement, not just women and indigenous groups, but everyone.

I'm just wondering if your organization's had any success dealing with provincial governments that may be doing it better than the federal government, or municipalities.

[Patrick Cheechoo]

I actually can't answer that today. I'd have to look—

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

We're all equally bad, or....