Government Operations Committee on Oct. 31st, 2024

[Gord Johns, NDP, Courtenay—Alberni, BC]

You talked about some of those barriers, like section 89. I'd like to hear a bit more about some of the barriers to indigenous contractors on reserve versus off reserve, and how section 89 comes into play and what needs to change.

[Jody Anderson]

I'll use a very simple example. As a status Indian, if I were to own a construction company on reserve and there was a bidding opportunity, and I worked with you, Mr. Johns, as being part of our non-indigenous allies, if we were to both say that we had $2 million in assets that we could potentially leverage, my assets could not be leveraged or utilized to secure any type of collateral or security simply because I'm located on reserve and deemed a status Indian. You, however, would have that ability, so it becomes inequitable right from the get-go. We're asking to have a backstop so that those assets could be earmarked and utilized through this fund so that we could both have equitable access to the bidding process.

[Gord Johns, NDP, Courtenay—Alberni, BC]

Not only does it create barriers to access the contracts but it also forces a lot of indigenous businesses on reserve to be subcontractors.

Can you talk about how that limits the opportunities to scale when it comes to businesses and access to capital to be able to grow that business?

[Jody Anderson]

I'm going to ask my colleague, Todd Eberts, to give an example of what we have seen in British Columbia.

[Todd Eberts, Managing Vice-President, BFL Canada, First Nations Finance Authority]

Thank you so much, Jody.

Thank you, everyone, for the opportunity to be here today.

It's a great question. We've seen companies in B.C., specifically around the time of the flood washouts from the atmospheric river in November 2021 that had access to bonding. These companies were qualified; they had the assets to use as security to gain bonding support. And when those washouts happened, the Ministry of Transportation had to call on these contractors to do that work. We saw companies go from revenues of $20 million a year to $20 million a month for the duration of that repair work. That opportunity simply doesn't exist for a contractor who can't achieve bonding support. Section 89, as Jody mentioned, presents barriers to achieving that support. These contractors who can't have bonding support because they are subject to that act are, as Shannin put it, relegated to "bite-sized opportunities" that don't require bonding. In B.C., as an example, on infrastructure projects that's a contract with a value of $200,000 or less. If we consider the inflation of labour and material costs over the last few years, that's a very small amount of work to break into a $200,000-contract.

[Gord Johns, NDP, Courtenay—Alberni, BC]

Can you speak briefly about how you have indigenous people on the ground in a situation like that who know best how to respond and how that colonial system comes in again, bringing in outsiders in responding to a problem like that?

[Jody Anderson]

We are seeing our communities have to watch non-indigenous contractors come into our communities and do things like paving roads or the construction of buildings when we have the ability to execute with our own indigenous companies, simply because bonding is a mandatory requirement for federal-procured projects.

Meegwetch.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

Thank you, Mr. Johns.

Before we start our second round, I think we have Ms. Leach's headphone worked out. If you'll bear with me, colleagues, we're going to spend 15 to 20 seconds.

Maybe, Ms. Leach, you can say a few words and we'll see if our interpreters can hear you properly.

[Dawn Madahbee Leach]

I wanted to reaffirm what everyone has been saying about direct indigenous involvement in delivering programs. We know what works best for our people, and whenever we've taken on programs, we've had more success in delivering those programs and helping our clients to obtain contracts and grow their businesses to meet the needs in our communities.

Is that working any better?

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

It's so-so.

We'll try. If anyone has questions, we'll do our best.

[Dawn Madahbee Leach]

I feel so sad that I can't participate.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

I understand. We run into this from time to time. We'll do our best.

Mr. Genuis, you have five minutes.

[Garnett Genuis, Conservative, Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB]

Thank you, Chair.

Mr. Metatawabin, are there any specific instances of abuse that you have seen that you would like to take this opportunity to share with us?

[Shannin Metatawabin]

We don't have the list. I've asked for access to the list, so that we can begin to assist the government to start to certify the businesses that are on there to assist you in finding the bad actors that you're looking for. I have the same list that Global News came up with.

I've had two entrepreneurs sit in my office and tell me their story about how they were part of Nisha Technologies and they were a part of PureSpirIT, I believe it's called. They were sold the opportunity to make a lot of money by being part of a process that never materialized. The non-indigenous owners of the companies took all the benefits and the two entrepreneurs were left standing with nothing.

There are a lot of opportunities to dig into the list, but of the 10 that Global News looked at, seven of them are questionably not indigenous. If you use 70% as your indicator of the entire list of 2,500, then you're seeing that there is a huge challenge. It needs an immediate audit. It needs to be an audit that includes us because we need to certify a list when it transfers to us anyway.

[Garnett Genuis, Conservative, Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB]

I'm going to try to cover a few different things in my time.

Very quickly, back to you, sir, would you support the proposal to have the Auditor General have a comprehensive look at this and make recommendations?

[Shannin Metatawabin]

If they know who is indigenous and who is not indigenous, I'd say yes, but it has to include us.

[Garnett Genuis, Conservative, Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB]

That's fair enough.

Ms. Anderson, in the context of your recommendations about access to capital, would you be able to comment on the Alberta Indigenous Opportunities Corporation model and how that has impacted indigenous business in Alberta?

[Jody Anderson]

Thank you for the question.

At the FNFA, we have not had the opportunity to do a partnering with the AIOC. However, my understanding is that they are doing good work and that they are very happy with being recapitalized on the addition.

I would default to Mr. Calla or Mr. Daniels, if they have any further comments on this.

[Garnett Genuis, Conservative, Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB]

Does anybody else want to weigh in on that as a model?

[Harold Calla]

I'll start and invite Ernie to join me.

Access to capital requires the co-operation of both provincial and federal governments. Section 91 and section 92 of the Constitution have complicated the relationship between first nations and the provinces and what has been provided to the provinces by the federal government.

It's important that both the provincial and federal governments have a line of sight to the value of creating opportunities for economic development for first nations that have impacts on provincial and national economies. Access to capital is the biggest barrier to doing that. It's in both governments' interest to ensure that first nations are in a position where they can get access to some of the initial capital that's required, particularly for larger projects.

It is very successful. It's a model that's being emulated by other provincial governments across the country. The issue that you have is that every government is going to have to come to grips with the order of magnitude of the economic opportunity before first nations. The $3 million or the $5 million are but a drop in the bucket of what has to eventually be provided.

[Garnett Genuis, Conservative, Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB]

Thank you.

Can I just jump in?

There may be others who could comment after I do.

I think a really important piece of this, in terms of improving access to procurement for indigenous businesses, is that we have to look at what the barriers are and have been. You can't just set a target and say that the job is done. You have to ask what the various barriers are that have prevented opportunity in the past.

Access to capital, the bonding issue and inequalities in terms of access to education are things that I've heard a lot about from indigenous businesses.

The other issue is just structural insider preference. This is something we've looked at across the board here. On the one hand, we say that we want more indigenous businesses, but on the other hand, we have a system that says that you have to have done a certain amount of business already with the federal government—if you've been engaged with provincial governments and if you can do the work, but you don't have that same history.

How can we address these real, substantial barriers that are getting in the way?

It's not just about setting a target; it's about actually addressing the barriers that exist.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

I apologize. There's not enough time left for a response. Perhaps we'll get to it in our next round.

We'll go to Mr. Battiste.

Welcome back, sir.

[Jaime Battiste, Liberal, Sydney—Victoria, NS]

Thank you for having me.

I want to jump into the conversation about what we do moving forward. As a status Indian, I'm coming to you from the Eskasoni First Nation Mi'kmaq community today. When we look at procurement for first nations under the Indian Act, for a status Indian, it's pretty cut and dried. I have a status card. That means I'm Indian under the Indian Act. It's pretty easy to determine that, even though I have problems with the Indian Act. I've written op-eds on this, and I've had our government look at opening up how we determine that because it's my firm belief that nations should decide who is part of their nations.

You are the experts. You've been doing this successfully for 30 years and more, Harold, Jody, Shannin. We've had conversations. How do you determine who is a Métis or an Inuit under your organizations?

[Shannin Metatawabin]

I'll turn it over to Dawn, if I can.

[Dawn Madahbee Leach]

If I can add to this, we've worked for three years on building a definition of “indigenous businesses”. We have worked with the diverse heritage groups to establish what they consider as the proper sources of indigeneity. On this national indigenous definition of indigenous businesses, we do have organizations and communities specifically that we go to to verify that indigeneity. We have identified, for example, that for the Inuit claims, they have a process there for identifying who Inuit people are.

Of course, recently, they've had to update the process because there have been some breaches, with people getting through and being recognized. We know as well that the Métis are working towards finalizing how they can also work on this because, currently, we recognize the organizations that were members of the Métis National Council, but the Métis National Council is changing its membership. That's something that the Métis are working towards and determining who their membership is, and we're awaiting those results as to—