Thank you, Chair.
Thank you to both of our witnesses.
Thank you for the opportunity we have with this important meeting to discuss the issue of indigenous procurement and some of the abuses we've heard about. They were through the arrive scam scandal initially, and now we've heard more through some further investigations that have been done.
We've heard from indigenous leaders who have said there is a significant problem in this indigenous procurement space with companies that are not indigenous or are perhaps misusing the rules that allow the primary beneficiaries to be non-indigenous companies, and this is the spirit in which we're engaging in this important study.
I'll start with a question for the Ghost Warrior Society.
There are probably three distinct categories we can look at of abuse or potential abuse when it comes to indigenous procurement. One is the complete fabrication or misrepresentation by a company of indigenous identity. Another is the misuse of joint ventures. You have a joint venture officially gaining advantage of a contract that's been set aside for indigenous peoples, but in effect, virtually all of the benefit from that contract is going to the non-indigenous partner. You then have the case of contracting and subcontracting, where you have a very small shell company getting contracts and then subcontracting all the work to non-indigenous companies.
In all of these different kinds of cases, we're seeing efforts by the government to say it's checked the box in indigenous procurement, but substantively, no benefit or very limited benefit is going to indigenous people. Part of the problem we see behind this is that the government is maintaining its own list of indigenous businesses that is not consistent with lists that are put together by indigenous organizations themselves.
I want to just drill down on the indigenous procurement issue. Why do you think the federal government would maintain its own list? Why is the federal government struggling to actually define the parameters of a program that would see indigenous people being the primary beneficiaries?