Government Operations Committee on Dec. 5th, 2022

[Stephanie Kusie, Conservative, Calgary Midnapore, AB]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

Delete that from the record, please.

We have Mr. Housefather for three minutes, please.

[Anthony Housefather, Liberal, Mount Royal, QC]

I thought it would be the Flames. I'm confused. I think we can all agree the Canadiens are the best team.

First of all, thank you so much for coming, everybody.

Ms. LaBillois, I wanted to ask a couple of questions about something that you answered before. You talked about self-identification and the problems related to self-identification when it comes time to determine what is an indigenous business that should be considered in the 5%.

Can you talk to me about how you would like to have indigenous communities agree, perhaps, on what should be done beyond self-identification?

[Victoria LaBillois]

Yes.

As my colleague Shannin mentioned, we have developed a definition of indigenous businesses, and we are going through our own organizations to engage and make sure everybody is on board with this, but essentially it's looking at our communities from a community perspective: We know who our people are.

The cost of false indigeneity or companies that can access projects that were set aside for indigenous businesses is huge. It takes up space that was created for our businesses. Most often, these shell companies aren't looking to hire our own people. Furthermore, the wealth that would accrue from this contract isn't returned to the indigenous community.

It's a pervasive problem. We're hearing about it across academia, within the public service and within businesses. It's out there and it's problematic.

[Anthony Housefather, Liberal, Mount Royal, QC]

I acknowledge that, and I agree.

May I ask another question? Should there be some mechanism...? Right now, we're talking about who owns a business. Should there be some reward or some mechanism where businesses are also judged on the number of indigenous people they hire, so that it's not just “I own a business and I don't hire any indigenous people, but it's an indigenous-owned business”. Does there have to be some reflection also of the percentage of the workforce that is indigenous to make sure that a business makes an effort to actually employ people from the community?

[Victoria LaBillois]

I would say that this would create a further barrier to us. As the point was made earlier, for women-owned businesses, if they don't hire women, they are still considered women-owned businesses. It's the same for a minority-owned business. If we're telling an indigenous-owned company, “We're not going to deem you an indigenous-owned company because you didn't hire enough indigenous people”....

Also to the point, I'll talk about difficulty accessing them. Say you're hiring a project engineer. These would be in very high demand in the indigenous community, and if I couldn't hire an indigenous engineer or project manager, that's an additional barrier to me.

[Anthony Housefather, Liberal, Mount Royal, QC]

I know I'm almost finished, but let me just mention that wasn't quite what I was mentioning. I was talking about that in a system not related to indigenous-owned businesses but to all businesses in terms of tenders offering additional points for having a diverse workforce, including indigenous peoples. That's what I meant.

Thank you so much.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

Thank you, Mr. Housefather.

Witnesses, thank you very much for joining us today. Thank you for your feedback. As I mentioned, we have studied this before in this committee, but we've heard a lot of new things today. I've heard a lot of new things today, so it was very valuable. I really appreciate everything you've shared with us today.

We are done with this study portion. We're going to go on to some committee issues.

Witnesses, you're welcome to sit and listen to us vote; otherwise, you can sign off.

We're staying public, colleagues.

Today is the last day of the committee. We can vote on the supplementary estimates (B) and report them back to the House. In all, there are nine votes in the supplementary estimates (B), 2022-23 referred to this committee. Unless anyone objects, I will seek the unanimous consent of the committee to group the votes together for decision.

Do we have that consent, please, to group them all together?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

DEPARTMENT OF PUBLIC WORKS AND GOVERNMENT SERVICES

Vote 1b—Operating expenditures..........$192,728,830

(Vote 1b agreed to on division)

NATIONAL CAPITAL COMMISSION

Vote 5b—Payments to the Commission for capital expenditures..........$33,000,000

(Vote 5b agreed to on division)

PRIVY COUNCIL OFFICE

Vote 1b—Program expenditures..........$11,214,622

(Vote 1b agreed to on division)

SHARED SERVICES CANADA

Vote 1b—Operating expenditures..........$18,177,411

(Vote 1b agreed to on division)

TREASURY BOARD SECRETARIAT

Vote 1b—Program expenditures..........$36,222,157

Vote 10b—Government-wide Initiatives..........$1,200,000

Vote 15b—Compensation Adjustments..........$385,380,126

Vote 20b—Public Service Insurance..........$536,506,604

Vote 25b—Operating Budget Carry Forward..........$415,000,000

(Votes 1b, 10b, 15b, 20b and 25b agreed to on division)

Thank you.

Shall we report them to the House?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

Wonderful. Thanks very much.

There's just one other item, the Governor General's travel expense study. The deadline for submitting the next group of documents is Sunday, January 15, 2023. I'm not sure why we picked a Sunday, but there we have it.

There's also no specific time on January 15 when the documents are due. Obviously, it's difficult to submit them on a Sunday. I'm wondering if we wish to change that to an alternative date, perhaps January 16, and a specific time, such as noon. Are you good with January 16 at noon?

[Julie Vignola, Bloc, Beauport—Limoilou, QC]

We could change the date to January 16, 4 p.m. or noon; I don't see a problem with that. If we had until 4 p.m., that would give us all day to—

[Anthony Housefather, Liberal, Mount Royal, QC]

On the 16th, at 4 p.m., seems like a great idea to me.

[Julie Vignola, Bloc, Beauport—Limoilou, QC]

On the 16th, at 4 p.m.— That sounds good.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

It's perfect: 4:00 p.m. on Monday, January 16. I know Mrs. Vignola will be here waiting for them.

Does everyone agree?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

Wonderful.

Is there anything else? Otherwise, we'll be adjourned.

We are adjourned.