Thank you very much, Madam Chair.
Thank you again to the witnesses for being present in this study. I really thank you for your contribution related to this idea of companies partnering with indigenous companies simply for the purpose of accessing procurement opportunities.
When it comes to a person who's pretending to be indigenous, we call them a "pretendian". This is more colloquial, in a way, where we say “rent a feather”. You've probably heard this before, the idea that you can rent a feather and can get access to any procurement you want.
We dealt with this issue when there was a company, federally, called Dalian. Dalian was a company that we had to stop giving money to through the ArriveCAN scenario—the big issue. The company had to admit that it didn't even know the indigenous procurement standards in the federal government. Worse yet, it didn't have 50% indigenous control. Then the owner himself didn't know if he was indigenous. Therefore, I really take what you're saying about this idea of renting a feather for the purpose of advancing one's own interests very seriously.
I want to ask you a question related to the fact that you are leaders in this space. Women and a lot of indigenous people look up to you. I know a lot of indigenous women who have—and you mentioned this at the onset—built these companies with their own money, and then they find it difficult to commercialize what they've built. What's your message to women who are in that position today, Ms. Nepinak?