Thank you, Rocky. I believe that's my cue to speak now.
Good afternoon, and thank you very much for the invitation to be part of this session today.
My name is Marnie Suitor, and I'm speaking to today from Amiskwaciy Waskahikan, which is Edmonton in Alberta, the heart of Treaty 6 territory and in Métis Region 4. I am a director of Aksis and I am also the principal partner of an indigenous-owned consulting practice known as In Synch Consulting.
Over the past 18 years, the majority of my focus has been on capacity building within indigenous communities, businesses and entrepreneurial endeavours. I have witnessed many entrepreneurs and department managers struggle with what I refer to as the end-to-end procurement process, whether that be at the front end when they they're searching for and identifying an opportunity to respond to, whether that's through the pre-qualification process, or whether that is in the contract and reporting management that is part of the project compliance.
It is a very tedious and onerous process, and it requires infrastructure to support and an expertise to complete the core elements of procurement. In many cases, entrepreneurs find that the return on their investment of time and resources just simply doesn't add up.
That said, I do believe that there are ways to streamline the process and to refine the policies and procedures to enable indigenous businesses to fully and meaningfully participate in the federal procurement process.
I want to thank you for allowing me to share these few thoughts and I look forward to participating as the session unfolds.
Thank you.