Thank you for the question.
I would be pleased to respond on behalf of Indigenous Services Canada.
I will note that it is Public Services and Procurement Canada that is, in fact, the lead on the 5% target. We are working very closely with them as well as with the Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat.
We're in the process right now of working through how this target will be put in place, specifically on the part of Indigenous Services Canada, in addition to working with our two partner departments. We're undertaking significant outreach with various indigenous organizations to ensure that we appropriately understand both the opportunities and the potential challenges of having more participation by indigenous businesses in federal procurement.
In addition, we are undertaking extensive training and a provision of knowledge internal to the Government of Canada both in terms of the practical aspects of undertaking procurement and also in terms of cultural awareness to ensure that federal public servants are knowledgeable about how they can procure with indigenous businesses.
Another step we're taking in a tangible way is increasing our outreach and encouraging businesses to register on a database called the indigenous business directory, which is the authoritative source of indigenous businesses listed with the federal government. It is a place where federal procurement officers can look to find indigenous businesses that they may be able to work with in order to fulfill a procurement requirement through an indigenous business.
Thank you.