Government Operations Committee on April 26th, 2018

[Lloyd Longfield, Liberal, Guelph, ON]

Thank you.

It's great to be here as part of the conversation. It's my first time on OGGO, so I apologize if I cover some things that have been covered in the past.

Looking at the building capacity that Mr. Drouin mentioned.... I'm thinking about work that I've done in northern Manitoba, working in shutdowns for mines or paper mills where crews are brought in to be on site. In a northern community, with access to northern talent, how might the apprenticeship programs feed into this, if you made part of the requirements to work with the unions, to make sure they have apprentices feeding from local talent pools? Is there any work being done on feeding apprenticeships through the unions into some of these projects?

[Marc LeClair]

That's a good question. In Manitoba I ran that hydro job, and had a couple of scopes up there. We had 150 indigenous people working in those jobs for the two winters that we ran the job. The capability's there. In this case, we didn't require the types of trades that are required, primarily in construction. One thing about construction is, the contractor itself has to make the decision to indenture somebody, and then work it through the union and the trades agency in each of the provinces. This is why the contractor—like EllisDon and PCL on the Hill—has to make the decision. They have to be told they have to bring in these folks, and they need to indenture some indigenous people. They need to invest the commitment of their company to do it. It's the company and the contractor that need to make those commitments, because those are long-term commitments. Unless they're forced to do it on the Hill, we won't see any of that in the next six years.

[Lloyd Longfield, Liberal, Guelph, ON]

If they're indentured, or if you have the talent then within their group, they're ready for the next job. You're building capacity for PCL, or whoever is doing the contracts, as well.

[Marc LeClair]

That's right. You know construction; it's one job after the next. And right now in Manitoba, we're going to put 200 Métis on Line 3. We're working with the union halls, and it's going to be a short job; we're not going to get indentured there, so we're looking at workarounds with those contractors so they can take the workers with them after the job is done.

[Lloyd Longfield, Liberal, Guelph, ON]

If we looked at coordinating apprenticeship programs with colleges, with Métis or indigenous people, maybe some cross-policy work could happen there. If we set the target, if it's 15% as you said, they'll have to find their 15% by going through the college system or trade unions.

One of the problems I've seen, reading the notes and looking at the white paper before this, was identifying them. Mr. Card, you mentioned this as well in terms of a portal. But the indigenous talent pool that would have those skill sets or the indigenous companies that would be able to provide those skill sets, having the procurement officer being able to find these people.... Right now I'm assuming there's not much in the way of being able to find these people based on—

[Brian Card]

One of my recommendations to Mr. LeClair is that they set up a help desk, a call centre where you can ask these questions. You could just say I'm a construction worker, I'm a policy analyst, whatever, and that call centre could quickly direct you to one of those 26 procurement vehicles, tell you that you have to have your project descriptions, your security clearance, the number of years of experience, they could match you up with other people to respond to a bid. I think a central station is lacking that would save everybody hundreds of days and hours and time.

[Lloyd Longfield, Liberal, Guelph, ON]

In terms of talent matching, a portal magnet was developed out of Ryerson. They were working with indigenous people as well to say they can filter by skilled trades, apprenticed or not apprenticed or journeymen or their background. I know ESDC in the federal government has been working with Magnet, so it sounds as if this study might be able to pull some of that together.

[Marc LeClair]

You've got a signature between the supply side and the demand side. On the supply side, we spent $350 million on indigenous employment and training. For Métis, it's about $55 million annually. These people are working with these clients trying to get them indentured, and it's always a challenge because you've got to go to the provincial agency and get them into the system. It's more on the supply side. We do lots on the demand side trying to get these people, but we don't have any supply-side strategies, for example, pull-through, so EllisDon and PCL are going to say okay, because that's the demand side. We need to incentivize them somehow to make those connections.

[Lloyd Longfield, Liberal, Guelph, ON]

In terms of the details of the government processing—you're saying 26 different systems are in place—scorecards are used quite often. I'm from private business as well, and we would be evaluated. If you have a quality management system, you get so many points. If you have whatever the supply chain, you have 24-hour service, you get extra points. If we had indigenous as one of the check-off boxes and women in trades as another, we have government programs to try to improve health care services for first nations and Métis and Inuit. If those people providing those services are also from the same background as the communities they're working in, there has to be some type of a link between these types of programs and whether we have a scorecard. And that's one of your recommendations with the scorecard. It's not just skilled trades; it's not just construction. It's all the other government programs and services we're providing for first nations and indigenous and Métis.

[Brian Card]

I would refer to it as a compliant card to find out whether or not you can match that database of expertise with the opportunities out there. I think that's what's semi-lacking; there's a disconnect between the two, so if you had somebody who could manage the database and opportunity comes along, are you compliant? Then you can put the package together and put in a competitive bid.

[Lloyd Longfield, Liberal, Guelph, ON]

Then you'd have somebody helping guide people to get themselves into the supply chain.

[Brian Card]

That's correct, yes.

[The Chair, Conservative, Tom Lukiwski]

Thank you very much.

Mr. Kelly, you have five minutes.

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

Thank you, Mr. LeClair, for your opening statement, and for getting onto the record here the success story that is the oil and gas industry in this topic.

The shame of the debate in Canada over the pros and cons of responsible energy development is the narrative that has somehow taken root that oil and gas development and resource development in general are bad for indigenous communities, when in fact so many indigenous communities are in remote areas of the country, where there's very little economic development, and the resource sector is perhaps the best available route for poverty alleviation and economic improvement for indigenous communities. I thank you for being quite clear about that.

Perhaps what I'd like to do, because, Mr. Card, you were short of time in your opening statement, is ask if you have some of the higher points of your 26 recommendations that you'd like to expand a little bit on. I'd be happy to hear them.

[Brian Card]

One of the points I wanted to make is that the aboriginal community is not being given a chance to bid. Because they haven't gone through the application process, they haven't been pre-qualified. You couple that with this example. A month and a half ago on Buyandsell, they came out with an opportunity and they invited two firms, only two firms. Only two firms in Canada were allowed to bid on this. I know there are hundreds of firms that could bid on it if they didn't have to go through the pre-qualifying list. The two first firms that were asked to bid needed 10 resources. There's nothing wrong with those two firms calling each other and saying, “We'll put a joint bid in together. You put five resources in, and I'll put five resources in”. It's totally legitimate.

A month later it comes out, and it's awarded to one company. Surprise. What I'm saying is if the aboriginal community or anybody else was allowed to put in a compliant bid, it would literally save the taxpayers of Canada probably millions of dollars and make it more open, fair, transparent, and competitive.

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

Okay, thanks.

Let me ask something that we haven't really dwelt on in some of the other testimony. The majority of indigenous Canadians do now live in cities. I represent a fully urban riding and the challenges of urban indigenous and those who live on reserve are often different. How does this enter into the discussion around procurement—the urban versus rural and the reserve versus city indigenous communities?

[Marc LeClair]

The Métis are nearly 70% in urban areas. We bid on anything we can get an effective bid on, so we find joint ventures. The rural part of Canada is a real challenge, because of the skill sets and because of the size of the companies, which are usually pretty local. They're not even looking towards Ottawa for anything at all. It's just a different reality, and I'm not sure how you address it. On the larger projects, for example with hydro, one thing we had to do in hydro up in the north was that the owner of the contract required us to have hiring sessions in a number of remote communities, so our recruiters went there. That was a way to get workers to the job, so that was a requirement in the RFP. Those sorts of things can be done.

[The Chair, Conservative, Tom Lukiwski]

Thank you very much.

Madam Ratansi, go ahead for five minutes.

[Yasmin Ratansi, Liberal, Don Valley East, ON]

Thank you for being here.

You stated that there are not many pre-qualified bidders in the indigenous community. Is it true, false, or did I mishear you?

[Brian Card]

There are not many; that is correct.

[Yasmin Ratansi, Liberal, Don Valley East, ON]

Okay. Is there a list of pre-qualified bidders you would be able to supply to the Government of Canada?

[Brian Card]

I do not have that list. If there is one available, I believe it's four years old. To my knowledge, there's not one available.

[Yasmin Ratansi, Liberal, Don Valley East, ON]

I find that people generally go to something they know, and then they repeat it. We just had the Brits come before us. You probably are aware of Carillion, and the collapse of Carillion, and the very scathing report the Auditor General did. I think it's important there not be mammoth groups of people just taking contracts every time.

The small- and medium-sized enterprises are important for this bidding process, but, Mr. LeClair, you mentioned that sometimes the subcontractors will use a shell company—and it's in the white paper here somewhere—and the shell company gets the bids and then collapses. Have you faced such risks? Do you know of places that do this?

[Marc LeClair]

Yes, we've seen it happen. I think what public works tries to do is use the pre-qualification process to limit the number of bidders, right? That's in order to make their system more efficient—I think that's an important part.

Oftentimes in those, where there's a supply arrangement or others, you're bidding against companies that are larger and have a competitive advantage in the bidding process. You've narrowed it a bit, and now it's even harder. Now you've taken all of the potential scopes of work that are pre-qualified out of the picture except for those that are pre-qualified....

The pre-qualification process has been a problem for small and medium-sized businesses, there's no question about it. There has to be a balance in the efficiency of the procurement system, for sure, but for indigenous businesses and small and medium-sized businesses, that whole system is stacked against them.

[Yasmin Ratansi, Liberal, Don Valley East, ON]

How would you simplify? The minister came before us. She wants to simplify the process and make it faster and better. How would you simplify the pre-qualification process while balancing risk?