Indigenous and Northern Affairs Committee on Dec. 9th, 2024

[Bob Zimmer, Conservative, Prince George—Peace River—Northern Rockies, BC]

Thank you, Chair.

I know that the NDP-Liberals, whether it is you, Minister, or the panel across the way, don't want to answer these questions that really matter to northerners and to our Arctic sovereignty. I understand that. You're wrapped up deep in scandal. You want to change the channel. I understand, and it's unfortunate that as minister, you're refusing to answer my questions today at committee.

Thank you.

[Jean-Yves Duclos, Liberal, Québec, QC]

A great question we should be answering, too, MP Zimmer, is about how we should be supportive of your 13 first nations communities in accessing federal procurement activities, like the McLeod Lake first nation, the Doig River First Nation, the Blueberry River First Nations and many others that are all located in your riding. It would be great if we could spend time together, within this particular setting, to support the indigenous businesses in your first nations communities.

[The Chair, Liberal, Patrick Weiler]

Thank you very much, Mr. Zimmer.

Next, we're moving to our last questioner on the second round.

Mr. McLeod, you have five minutes.

[Michael McLeod, Liberal, Northwest Territories, NT]

Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you to the witnesses for appearing here today.

It's very refreshing to have this discussion. I'm struggling to follow some of the questioning, though. I don't know what icebreakers have to do with indigenous people. We don't really have any role. We don't have any kind of participation in receiving any of that money. We don't have anything to do with the sleeping bags that the military is getting.

I belong to the Rangers. We supply our own sleeping bags. Nobody buys them for us, so maybe that's something we need to discuss at a different time.

I live in an indigenous community. I've watched this my whole life. Procurement has been pitiful. It has been embarrassing, when it comes to indigenous companies and organizations. In the north, we see RCMP buildings and other federal infrastructure projects coming forward. There's not one person from the community working on them. Usually it's a union restriction, or we can't get a set-aside agreement because the process is too cumbersome. It takes too long, and we miss the opportunity.

As we move forward, now that we've moved forward with this government, we're starting to see changes. If we're going to move forward towards economic reconciliation, we have to make sure the tool box is full. That means no longer doing business the way we did it historically. I know we pleaded with the Conservative federal government for many years to make changes. It didn't happen. We're doing it now, but it's not enough.

Funding has to go directly to indigenous governments for their own infrastructure projects. That has to start. We need to start looking at equity participation. For some of these big projects, indigenous people need to be part of the ownership. They need to hold some of the shares in some of these big projects that are coming forward.

There is the issue of resource revenue sharing. The Northwest Territories is one of the few jurisdictions that shares resource royalties with indigenous governments, but the federal government still takes 50% of the royalties off our lands. I say that because indigenous governments still have a long way to go to sort out land tenure and disputed land. Resource royalties are being generated. They are mostly going to the federal government, so that has to change.

Mobility is another issue that we need to talk about if we're going to talk about economic reconciliation. It was reported way back to this committee that we have a couple of hundred thousand people who are unemployed. There are indigenous people in communities in the west and in the north who can't get jobs, even though there are jobs just across the way from them, because mobility is a challenge.

We've managed to secure a 5% procurement target for indigenous companies, but it's not enough. It's a good starting point, but we have a long way to go.

My question is to Minister Hajdu. It's completely my belief that indigenous people have to manage this. It has to be run by indigenous people. The resources would probably have to come from the government, but it has to be managed by indigenous people with proper support.

I know there's already been a commitment. MP Idlout asked this question, but I want you to expand on the commitment to transfer the indigenous business directory away from the Government of Canada to the management and control of indigenous people. How are you making sure that first nations, Inuit, and Métis are part of this discussion?

[Patty Hajdu, Liberal, Thunder Bay—Superior North, ON]

Thank you.

I think your story, MP McLeod, is so important, because you highlighted all of the challenges indigenous businesses have faced over a history of colonialism.

I do want to acknowledge your comment about the 5% target. That's the floor. We're hoping what we'll see is even more indigenous businesses being able to prosper not just from Canada as a customer, but also, hopefully, from other orders of government as well.

I will say that the numbers in my own remarks illustrate that this is not only good for indigenous communities and businesses, for opportunities for employment and for self-determination around all kinds of different things, but also really good for the economy of Canada. We are just shooting ourselves in the foot if we don't actually move more quickly to ensure that first nations, Inuit and Métis companies and people have opportunities to succeed.

You asked a really specific question about what the next steps are. I will say that we've been meeting with an advisory committee of a number of different procurement experts, business experts, from all of the distinctions bases over the last couple of years to try to get to that answer. What would an independent procurement list agency look like? Who should hold this responsibility? Quite frankly, we haven't really had a consensus across the different distinctions groups or organizations that we're working with.

I think the next step is to pull people together again to think about whether they would like to proceed as a collective to design something that more quickly removes this responsibility from the government's department and places it into an independent type of agency. It would be something that not only could be stood up quickly but that also could provide the space for indigenous people to do what, I think, will be their hard job of wrangling around how they will define identity.

Identity, as you know, as an indigenous person yourself, is not as cut and dried as some of the opponents would like to make it seem. There are different ways that people define indigeneity. Indigenous peoples themselves define indigeneity differently. The Government of Canada's colonial process of having a very heavy hand in whether someone is status or not—for example, with first nations—complicates this conversation tremendously.

I am looking forward to this work happening soon. I hope that we'll have something to say in the new year about it. We're moving very quickly with partners on the next steps.

[The Chair, Liberal, Patrick Weiler]

Thank you very much, Mr. McLeod.

That completes our second round of questioning.

We're moving into the third round, starting with Mr. Genuis for five minutes.

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

Thank you, Chair.

Indigenous leaders have said that indigenous identity fraud is rampant in this program, but no one has been held accountable. I want to come back to that. Nobody has been held accountable by the government for indigenous identity fraud. Let's zero in on one famous example, MP Randy Boissonnault.

His company, Global Health Imports, misrepresented its identity as being indigenous. We know that now. There's no debate. It made a claim that it was indigenous; that claim was false.

My first question is this: Has the indigenous identity fraud of Randy Boissonnault's company been referred to the RCMP?

[Patty Hajdu, Liberal, Thunder Bay—Superior North, ON]

I believe I answered this question at my last committee appearance just a few weeks ago.

The company in question, GHI, was never on the indigenous business procurement list. I believe Minister Duclos has additional information about—

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

Just before you chime in, Mr. Duclos, my question is very specific.

We know the company engaged in indigenous identity fraud in order to increase their chance of getting business from the government. That's fraud. Has this case been referred to the RCMP?

[Jean-Yves Duclos, Liberal, Québec, QC]

Mr. Genuis, when you say things like that, you have to be careful about the language used. You said that fraud was committed. You will need to prove that. I can assure you that, if fraud was committed, the politically independent mechanisms in place in the government would be ued to deal with it properly.

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

My question was about referring the matter to the RCMP. However, I am a bit struck, Mr. Duclos, that you think I should be careful in saying that they committed fraud. They claimed to be an indigenous-owned business. They are not an indigenous-owned business, but in the process of pursuing a contract with the Government of Canada, they falsely claimed to be indigenous.

How is there any doubt about whether that is fraudulent?

[Jean-Yves Duclos, Liberal, Québec, QC]

It's not up to us as politicians to determine whether or not fraud was committed—

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

I understand, but you could refer the matter to the RCMP. I'm just asking if you made a referral—

[Ben Carr, Liberal, Winnipeg South Centre, MB]

I have a point of order, Mr. Chair.

[Jean-Yves Duclos, Liberal, Québec, QC]

We want to avoid turning into an artificial court of justice. We have to trust the experts.

[The Chair, Liberal, Patrick Weiler]

Go ahead, Mr. Carr.

[Ben Carr, Liberal, Winnipeg South Centre, MB]

It's extremely difficult to hear the minister.

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

Can we stop with this nonsense and just let people do their jobs? He wasn't answering the question, so I jumped in. Can you...?

[Ben Carr, Liberal, Winnipeg South Centre, MB]

Mr. Chair, I think that—

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

This farce is not allowed to go on at any other committee, Mr. Chair. Can you tell them to be quiet and let people actually do their work?

[The Chair, Liberal, Patrick Weiler]

Mr. Genuis, the minister was in the middle of answering the question you asked.

[Ben Carr, Liberal, Winnipeg South Centre, MB]

I hope Mr. Lemire will have something to say about that. There are two official languages.

[The Chair, Liberal, Patrick Weiler]

Before he could actually get to the answer, you interrupted him. I understand that there are times when you want to ask a pointed question, and that is very much the practice and procedure of committees. However, because of the interpretation difficulties and also because members might have challenges hearing, it's very important that we not have the crosstalk.

Because of the health impacts, which we've been warned about many times in committees and in the House, I want to remind members not to be cross-talking.

With that, Mr. Genuis, you have two minutes and 40 seconds.

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

I'll give the minister one more chance to answer the question.

You have a company that I think quite clearly engaged in indigenous identity fraud. You might say, “Well, maybe it wasn't quite fraud; maybe they just lied in order to try to steal money from the taxpayers, but it wasn't really fraud.”

Have you referred information about this case to the RCMP?

[Jean-Yves Duclos, Liberal, Québec, QC]

I would say that there is a right and a responsibility: You have the right to your opinions, and we have the responsibility to verify whetherfraud has actually occurred. That responsibility is fulfilled in a politically independent manner, and certainly as far away from partisanship as possible.