Evidence of meeting #15 for Indigenous and Northern Affairs in the 44th Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was housing.
A video is available from Parliament.
4:30 p.m.
Senior Research Associate, Frontier Centre for Public Policy
I missed the question. I apologize.
4:30 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Marc Garneau
Let's start that one over.
Madame Idlout, please ask your question again. Hopefully, they'll hear the translation this time.
April 26th, 2022 / 4:30 p.m.
NDP
Lori Idlout NDP Nunavut, NU
[Member spoke in Inuktitut, interpreted as follows:]
Thank you.
Joseph, you responded that private sector involvement is needed to improve decision-making related to indigenous housing. However, you wrote on June 3, 2021, at the Frontier Centre for Public Policy, that Kingdom Construction Limited received $90 million in federal funding. There were overcharges reported. There was a lot of deficient work, and delays and racism, in the first nations housing projects. There was racism in housing.
How can we trust the private sector, given those kinds of examples having taken place? How can we be sure about the private sector when it does that?
4:30 p.m.
Senior Research Associate, Frontier Centre for Public Policy
I don't have the article that you mentioned right in front of me. I was looking for it, and I recognize the reference that you made.
I think part of the problem is not the fact that they're private companies. Whatever the tendering process is, the policy has to be very well done and airtight. This is more of a government problem because, in that issue, they recognize that the criticism was that the federal government was pushing that first nation to adopt the lowest tender, which happened to go with this company that had this reputation. I think it illustrates a problem with the government getting entangled in this. This is where it gets into trouble.
If they are going to have these private companies helping out by doing the construction, they have to make sure that they have good polices, that they're not pressuring first nations to adopt the cheapest bids and that they're looking into the companies.
I recommended in that article that first nations have access to information about construction firms so that they can make informed decisions.
4:30 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Marc Garneau
Thank you very much, Ms. Idlout.
Thank you, everyone.
This brings our second round to a close.
I would like to thank both Mr. Quesnel and Mr. Bailey. We finally got you included there, and it was very good that we did.
Thank you for your testimony and for answering the questions the committee had for you. We very much appreciate that.
We'll now adjourn so that the subcommittee can do its work in a few minutes.