Right, exactly, but that suggests there's something very dramatic lost in translation, because that's an order of magnitude of six times.
At the government operations committee we're looking at indigenous procurement and we're planning some further study on it. Mr. Bernard, you told us a story about growing up on reserve, starting a successful business that employs indigenous people and investing back into your community. Based on what we know from your testimony, that seems like precisely the kinds of outcomes that indigenous procurement policies are meant to support.
However, we also know now clearly that there are instances of abuse as well: tiny companies that become qualified as indigenous but that subcontract the actual work to non-indigenous firms and do not provide benefits back to indigenous communities. You were quoted in The Globe and Mail saying that you “tried for years to advise the government on how it could refine its Indigenous set-aside contracting policies”.
Sir, what is your advice? How can the current problems—the use of the Dalian model, for instance—be fixed to achieve the kinds of outcomes that the program is supposed to aim for?