Government Operations Committee on Oct. 6th, 2022

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

But this is specific. You mentioned owned and led. This is specifically “managed and led”, as opposed to “owned”.

[Michael Mills]

Ownership is a requirement for us.

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

It is stated differently in the departmental plans. Is that just an oversight?

[Michael Mills]

It may be an oversight in terms of the language, but in terms of the policy, it's 51% owned and led.

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

You talked about difficulty with privacy laws. Can you provide to this committee, in writing, what those concerns are and what the specific laws are? We have tracked such businesses before. I don't think it's a new issue.

I don't want to get into it now, but can you provide to the committee the exact laws you're talking about that have been a barrier to achieving the recommendations set out in our previous study?

[Michael Mills]

Yes, we'll follow up on that, and Mr. Chair, I would like to respond quickly to the point of the earlier question. Particularly for the LGBTQ+ community, there are serious concerns about revealing their identity, who would have access—

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

I'm talking specifically about the ones who were identified in our 2018 study and recommendations, which were for women-led and indigenous-led businesses. It sounded like that was the reason we weren't able to identify indigenous-led businesses for tracking.

[Michael Mills]

Mr. Chair, again, those are a part of the groups covered by our policy. As we're doing the overall policy, we're not segregating group by group.

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

Okay. Would you just provide us with more precise...?

[Michael Mills]

We'll be providing it.

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

Getting back to the original study, would you be able, when you inform the committee on our recommendations from 2018, to identify which ones have been accomplished and which ones are halfway through or almost done, as well as a date by which the other ones will be achieved or whether there's no intention of following that specific recommendation?

I want to walk through some of the barriers. I know from the previous study and from other studies we've done here about the difficulty in filling out the procurement forms. Sometimes you need one or two full-time people to fill out an RFP to sell a single pen.

What other barriers are you seeing for indigenous businesses in being able to procure from the government?

[Michael Mills]

One of the key barriers that we've heard repeatedly are requirements for bonding. Businesses that are located on reserve have a barrier, in law, to pledging their property to access capital to bond.

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

Let me interrupt you. That was an issue that came up for all SMEs. It wasn't just indigenous.

Will PSPC be addressing it for everyone? This was the issue we heard about needing unlimited liability to sell the government a roll of toilet paper. It was frankly asinine and it only exists, I'm sure, with Canadian procurement. Will you address it for indigenous and also other Canadian SMEs?

[Michael Mills]

Mr. Chair, with respect to indigenous businesses, the inability to pledge on-reserve assets to secure bonds is a unique problem that exists in the Indian Act,. That's the issue that we're looking to address.

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

When will we be able to get by that? Does it require legislation on PSPC's part? Is it an order in council? How easy is this to address?

[Michael Mills]

Mr. Chair, I would say that addressing the legal impediment within the Indian Act to pledge on-reserve assets to secure bonds is a very—

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

I don't mean Indian Act rules but PSPC rules. You could waive those.

[Michael Mills]

Again, Mr. Chair, we're working with Indigenous Services Canada, which is a lead in terms of the programming of potential solutions and workarounds to address this problem, in partnership with indigenous organizations such as the National Aboriginal Capital Corporations Association.

[The Chair, Conservative, Robert Gordon Kitchen]

Thank you, Mr. McCauley.

We'll now go to Ms. Thompson for five minutes.

[Joanne Thompson, Liberal, St. John's East, NL]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Mr. Ozmutlu, do you find that there are differences across regions in Canada with a diversity in procurement? What is it that you can do to improve diversity in procurement programs?

[Levent Ozmutlu]

Given the demographic differences across the country, yes, of course we can expect to see differences in terms of representation in different procurement opportunities. The demographics in a place like Toronto obviously will be vastly different from those in a rural community.

What I can say is we're trying to design our programs in such a way that when the procurements are for the Government of Canada, they are obviously open for bids regardless of where the suppliers are located. There may be certain instances in which geographic proximity to where the requirement is unfolding may be required or may be a bit of an advantage, but certainly our approach is to look at it on a pan-Canadian basis to ensure that we're not leaving any region or any group in a region behind.

[Joanne Thompson, Liberal, St. John's East, NL]

Thank you.

I will follow up with another nudge for specifics or a little more detail in terms of that pan-Canadian strategy. What does it look like to really assist more under-represented groups in terms of expanding diversity, and what does it look like to really assist in the process of the procurement? I'm sure it can be quite daunting.

[Levent Ozmutlu]

Thank you again for the question.

Maybe I'll start off and then I can turn to my colleague Clinton Lawrence-Whyte, who can elaborate a little bit more from the perspective of Procurement Assistance Canada.

What I was alluding to was that when we have procurement opportunities, they are typically not limited to any particular region. Even if, for example, there is a requirement for a goods procurement in the national capital region, you don't have to be in the national capital region to fulfill that requirement. With that view, we are looking at representation across the country.

I'll turn it over to my colleague Clinton, who can elaborate a little bit more about the services they provide in different offices across Canada.

Thank you.

[Clinton Lawrence-Whyte, Director General, Procurement Assistance Canada, Department of Public Works and Government Services]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair, for the question.

We've talked about my organization, Procurement Assistance Canada. It has the mandate to aid small and medium-sized businesses to participate in federal procurement and to support efforts to increase supplier diversity in the federal base.

As mentioned, recognizing that there is a diversity across the country, Procurement Assistance Canada has a network of six regional offices that we were able to leverage to work closely with community partners to help them secure the support they need. We also establish partnerships with key players in the regions and we're able to put in place different types of supports, including educational supports. We provide direct assistance and we do webinars. All of this is with the goal of helping these different communities to be more comfortable in their ability to actively participate in federal procurement.

Our intent at the end of the day is to have these different businesses ready to bid and confident that they can participate in federal procurement.

[Joanne Thompson, Liberal, St. John's East, NL]

Thank you. I appreciate that.

Ms. Royds, along the same thread, could you speak about the methods and criteria in place to verify whether a business meets the diversity procurement criteria?