Thank you, Chair.
This has been a really rich conversation so far. Thank you.
I want to raise the issue of exploitative joint ventures as part of procurement. There are obviously plenty of legitimate instances of joint ventures between indigenous and non-indigenous business, but we're hearing a lot about exploitative joint ventures. A non-indigenous partner gets all of the benefit. The indigenous partner realizes almost none of the benefit, but is tacked on in order to allow them to qualify for these set-asides.
One example we heard about recently through a whistle-blower is the Canadian Health Care Agency. Instances of fraud were actually brought to the attention of the government, and they didn't want those passed along. What we're seeing is that joint ventures represent a very small percentage of those on the indigenous business list, yet they are getting a massive proportion of the contracts, especially the large contracts. That suggests there is an instance of these exploitative joint ventures that are taking advantage of these set-asides in order to monopolize the benefit for the non-indigenous side of the partnership. Even to call it a partnership is misleading.
Ms. Restoule, could you comment on the issue of exploitative joint ventures and maybe what steps we could take to address that?