Indigenous and Northern Affairs Committee on May 29th, 2020

[Gary Vidal, Conservative, Desnethé—Missinippi—Churchill River, SK]

Mr. Chair, I am going to cede a minute of my time to Mr. Schmale here.

[Jamie Schmale, Conservative, Haliburton—Kawartha Lakes—Brock, ON]

Thank you, Chair. I just need maybe a point of clarification or ruling from you. As you know, I have a notice of motion tabled and I'd be happy to wait until the end of the meeting rather than doing it right now and interrupting the testimony from our witnesses.

With your permission, Chair, I'm happy not to do that now and maybe save five minutes before the end of the meeting and do it then.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bob Bratina]

It looks to me as though we should have a little bit of space there, so that's well accepted.

Mr. Vidal, you can carry on for another four minutes.

[Gary Vidal, Conservative, Desnethé—Missinippi—Churchill River, SK]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Mr. Metatawabin—I was going to say Shannin. Sorry, I practised and I still didn't get it right. I apologize.

I have a couple of quick questions for you first and then I want to give you a little bit of time to talk on something else.

In the context of the $306.8 million that was rolled out, I'm just curious as to whether your organization was consulted prior to that announcement and whether you were involved in the rollout of that at all.

[Shannin Metatawabin]

Yes, we have been engaged with Indigenous Services Canada since the very beginning. I think we met with them for the first time on the 17th to talk about how we were going to respond to the impact that we knew was going to be coming. We have been engaged with them all along.

It didn't land the way we had hoped, but I think it's still something we can work with. We're going to get it out to as many indigenous businesses as we can because there is a certain percentage that went with the general measures because they couldn't wait the two months, but I'll be happy to report on how we're delivering in, let's say, a month.

[Gary Vidal, Conservative, Desnethé—Missinippi—Churchill River, SK]

In the context of any kind of post-pandemic recovery, as we start to hear of a number of provinces reopening their economy—I know in my riding a number of first nations and indigenous communities have what they call lockdowns or they have very limited kind of travel and movement around in the communities—I'm just curious as to whether you have been consulted at all with regard to the post-pandemic planning and the impact on indigenous businesses as we start to see our economies ramp back up again.

[Shannin Metatawabin]

Yes, I think we've started to talk about that, because we identified that what we just went through was an emergency response, but we now have to collect the data. We've been involved with the task force to collect data.

We're probably going to have another survey done to ensure that we are understanding what's going on, how long it's going to take to rebound, and what we need to have in place to ensure that we're responding in a meaningful way, to ensure that we're going to grow indigenous businesses once again.

[Gary Vidal, Conservative, Desnethé—Missinippi—Churchill River, SK]

Ms. Bull, can I throw that same question at you in the context of post-pandemic planning and whether you've been actively engaged and involved, and whether your voice is being heard in some of the planning and how it affects businesses that you represent?

[Tabatha Bull]

Yes. As Shannin said, the task force is working together. National business organizations understand what our businesses will be needing in order to recover.

I am also involved in an indigenous economic response recovery group for the Province of Ontario as well, to look at how Ontario indigenous businesses can continue. Through the supply council, I think, there is a real opportunity for us to be part of the recovery.

[Gary Vidal, Conservative, Desnethé—Missinippi—Churchill River, SK]

Shannin, I have about a minute and a half or almost two minutes left. You kind of got cut off in your presentation. You had a couple more recommendations to make, so I'm going to give you about a minute and a half to see if you can hit those things that you didn't get a chance to talk about in your opening comments, if you would like to take that time to try to do that.

[Shannin Metatawabin]

I really appreciate that.

What I wanted to cover is that we have to recognize that indigenous people face unbelievable barriers. If we're talking about a back-to-business strategy when we flatten the curve and the economic downturn plateaus—we're talking about a rebound—we don't want to take longer than the Canadian economy to rebound. We want to get ahead of this, so this recovery planning that we're talking about now is very important.

I covered a little bit about how that the AFI network has suffered a 70% decrease in federal funding, and in any sort of developmental lending you need to stimulate that growth. It hasn't been happening in the indigenous community. We've been doing the best we can with what we have but we can do a lot better.

I think the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples, more than 20 years ago, recommended an annual 5% increase in developmental lending. That has not happened. The government announced a $100-million growth fund. We can't lose sight of the momentum from developing a tool to attract private sector capital so that we can add additional capital to our community.

The last one is a 5% target for indigenous procurement. It's so important. That's going to bring more than a billion dollars in opportunity to the community just at the federal level, never mind provincial, municipal and corporate Canada. There's so much opportunity there to be a part of prosperity.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bob Bratina]

I'm glad you had the opportunity to conclude that. Please submit a brief to us as well so that we have all of the information you've been trying to express.

Mr. Fergus, you have five minutes. Please go ahead.

[Greg Fergus, Liberal, Hull—Aylmer, QC]

I thank all the witnesses for joining us. I have questions for them, and I hope to have enough time to put some questions to Ms. Bull, Mr. Michel and Mr. Metatawabin.

I will start with you, Ms. Bull.

One of my colleagues recommended that I watch your interview with The Future Economy. I found it very interesting, especially when you talked about how important it is for indigenous communities that a share of government procurement be set aside for indigenous businesses. In the Minister of Public Services and Procurement mandate letter, our government proposes to award 5% of federal government contracts to indigenous businesses.

Could you comment further on that and specify how the awarding of government contracts to indigenous businesses can help them during the pandemic?

[Tabatha Bull]

We were quite pleased to see that announcement of the 5% procurement. We have had a procurement marketplace structure at CCAB for two years now. It's been used by corporate Canada and it's been very successful. The biggest thing there is that corporations are setting targets, and they're measuring against those targets. I know we talk about this example often, but Suncor set a target of 5% for all of their spend from indigenous business and they have more than reached that target. A number of other businesses have done the same.

I think what we need to do, for the federal government, is to do the same. Just set a metric for all ministries to be able to ensure that they're meeting that—

[Sylvie Bérubé, Bloc, Abitibi—Baie-James—Nunavik—Eeyou, QC]

I apologize, but there is no interpretation.

[Greg Fergus, Liberal, Hull—Aylmer, QC]

Mr. Chair, will the clock be reset for this answer, since there was no interpretation?

[The Chair, Liberal, Bob Bratina]

Okay.

Go ahead. There's still time left.

[Tabatha Bull]

Thank you.

On the 5% procurement, we were very pleased to see that. As Pam mentioned, we did a research study, together with the federal government, looking at the potential of indigenous businesses in Canada to meet the federal procurement. It showed that indigenous businesses can currently meet 24% of the federal procurement on a yearly basis, so 5% is definitely a floor.

As we said, we really need to make sure there are metrics across government and across ministries to ensure that they are purchasing from indigenous business, and there needs to be some evaluation held against that. We do see this as very successful in corporate Canada. More than 80 large corporations in Canada have made a commitment to buy from indigenous business, and they've been successful in doing so. I think one of the key things is a metric.

We're also working with our other national organizations and through the National Indigenous Economic Development Board, together with NACCA and CANDO, to work together to see how we can support the government to ensure that the businesses are certified, so that there is a real test to the ownership of those businesses as indigenous businesses, and then to ensure that we're able to have a list held by an independent indigenous organization, similar to what happens in Australia with Supply Nation.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bob Bratina]

Mr. Fergus, you have a minute left.

[Greg Fergus, Liberal, Hull—Aylmer, QC]

Thank you very much Ms. Bull. I have a second question for you.

Given your experience in the private sector, you know that objectives are not reached overnight. How much time do you think it will take for the government to be able to meet that 5% target? Will it be two years, three years? What is your estimate?

[Tabatha Bull]

I think originally we were advocating for the 5%. We specifically were saying 1% a year, and within five years we should definitely be able to get to 5%. We've seen corporations able to do that as well. It doesn't all have to be purchased directly from indigenous businesses, but there's an opportunity to require large contracts with corporate Canada to have a 5% indigenous-supplied provision within them as well. That would help contribute to the 5% and we'd be able to get there must faster.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bob Bratina]

Thank you very much.

We have two speakers for two and a half minutes, Ms. Bérubé and Ms. Gazan.

Ms. Bérubé, go ahead.

[Sylvie Bérubé, Bloc, Abitibi—Baie-James—Nunavik—Eeyou, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

My question is for you, Ms. Bull. You said in an interview recently that the transition to telework in the context of the pandemic is a particular challenge for indigenous businesses in rural or remote communities, where broadband infrastructure is weak when it does exist.

What should the federal government do to support indigenous businesses in the communities with an unreliable Internet connection?

[Tabatha Bull]

I know that broadband infrastructure has been in the budget for the last two years, and we have been talking about ensuring that this commitment continues to be in the budget, but there's an opportunity to ramp it up. If there is a point where we're not back to the office or we're not travelling until there's a vaccine, that's going to put those indigenous businesses in rural and remote communities at a real disadvantage. Therefore, I think we need to be looking at that broadband infrastructure plan and seeing where we can expedite that work.

[Sylvie Bérubé, Bloc, Abitibi—Baie-James—Nunavik—Eeyou, QC]

How much of an impact could the availability of a reliable Internet connection have on the reopening of indigenous businesses in accordance with public health directives?