I want to thank Mr. Green for bringing this forth originally. I'd certainly love to dig into this more.
My biggest concern is that I want to make sure we add enough teeth to this. Those who were with us in the 42nd Parliament, of course, studied SME procurement with indigenous people, and we heard again and again.... Every single witness we had from indigenous and Métis communities came forward and said that the government was not following its own laws on procurement, that PSPC and INAC were a mess, and that not one of them was actually helpful or following the laws. Then we had the bureaucrats and the government show up, throwing their shoulders out because they were patting themselves on the back so hard.
We repeatedly brought it up in committee that the people we were supposed to be serving were saying that it wasn't working, yet witnesses—ADMs and that—from PSPC, INAC and the others thought everything was perfect and were tripping over themselves to compliment themselves on what a great job they were doing—complete disconnect. We tabled a report on this, and since that time, not one action has been taken on that report.
I applaud you, Mr. Kusmierczyk and Mr. Green, for bringing this forward. We don't have to do it today, but I really think we need to build some teeth into this if we're going to be spending this time. The Liberals have been in power for five years and have done nothing to address this. It's rather shocking. We did a greening government study that was duplicated by five other committees. That seemed more important than this. However, we actually did a study previously, and nothing has been done.
I do hope that we would actually add some teeth to this, and I think we could all support the motion and the amendment.