Madam Speaker, I am very pleased to speak tonight on this concurrence debate. I will be sharing my time with my neighbour in the riding and here in the House, the member for Sturgeon River—Parkland.
This seems like everything old is new again with this debate and looking at this particular issue. We looked at this issue over six years ago in the operations committee. I know I have rarely mentioned my work in the operations committee over the nine years I have been on it here in the House.
In 2018, the OGGO committee, the mighty OGGO, put out report number 15 on indigenous procurement and the government's role and how we can help with indigenous businesses. I really encourage everyone, especially the government, to read the report. The government did a response to the report, as it is required to, which, of course, was full of nothings.
A couple of years later, in probably 2020 or 2021, I asked the government to table an analysis line by line of the recommendations, to see how many had been achieved. On the 35 recommendations, the government came back with 35 examples of basic word salad, which means it basically has not done anything.
I have to ask again why we are studying this issue. My colleague from Edmonton Griesbach gave us a shot at the end, and I am perfectly fine with that. We did work together on public accounts, and I know he is passionate about this and we share a lot of similar values. The government should be following its rules and there should be accountability for government for its actions. We continue to see nothing on this issue.
From the report, I am going to go over some of the titles. My colleague from Edmonton Griesbach asked why we have not done anything in the past 20 years. I have to say that we have a blueprint on how to succeed in this issue, and the government sat on it for six and a half years. Here are some of the headings from the report, just so the government can understand some of the things we are talking about. It talks about governance and interpretation of the indigenous strategy, promoting the indigenous strategy and preventing corporate fronts. Of course, we talked about that a lot in the question period today. Perhaps the member for Edmonton Centre would like to weigh in on this issue, or perhaps read the report himself.
There are other sections on supporting small and medium-sized indigenous women-owned indigenous businesses, and set-asides and the establishment of targets and goals, which makes me kind of confused. Why does the government need goals and targets? We have set rules on indigenous set-asides, on business that has to be set aside for indigenous-owned companies. Why we call it a goal when it is firm in writing is beyond me.
Another section is on partnerships and joint ventures, which again is a topic often discussed today, and on the front page of the National Post, about basically fake indigenous companies being set up, or shell companies. Another is lessons from the oil and gas sector. My colleague from Edmonton Griesbach weighed in on that as well, and I am going to respectfully disagree. We heard indigenous business communities all say that across the country, the energy sector in Alberta is promoting and using indigenous businesses the most. The ones doing the worst job were PSPC and INAC.
There was a section on the evaluation of the indigenous strategy and data. This is funny because the government at the time, when asked how it was recording which indigenous companies were getting business and recording successes, commented that it was being tracked by Excel spreadsheet and that it did not have proper numbers. A couple years later we asked the same question and were told it was being tracked on an Excel spreadsheet. Thank God it was not using Lotus 1-2-3, because I am sure the government would, if it could get away with that.
Another section of the report was on large-scale procurement projects, and my favourite one, parliamentary precinct. I want to read part of the report on parliamentary precinct, which reads, “[The government] informed the committee that in fall 2017, PSPC posted a tendering process for project managers for a portion of the rehabilitation of the parliamentary precinct for only three weeks.” For all three of those watching at home, I am referring to the rebuilding of Centre Block, which is about a $10-billion project.
The government put out an RFP that was only valid for about three weeks. The report continues, “Moreover, he highlighted that one of the requirements in that tendering process was that eligible companies had to acquire their resources from within a 50-kilometre radius of Ottawa.” That excluded Métis and indigenous businesses that were just outside of that 50-kilometre limit.
The Liberals, who spend so much time patting themselves on their backs and are almost throwing their arms out from patting themselves on the back so hard, rise repeatedly in the House to say that there is no relationship more important than theirs with the first nations. However, for the symbol of our democracy, Centre Block, the very building that defines freedom and democracy in Canada, they purposely excluded Métis and other indigenous businesses from being able to bid or even being subcontractors on this project. It is mind-boggling and shameful.
We also spoke in committee about the use of aboriginal criteria and that the government should be having their suppliers track subcontractors so we can see if there are community benefits for first nations. Just in the last couple of weeks, we have been studying indigenous procurement, again, at the operations committee. We were told that we are not tracking subcontractors. Why are we not doing this simple process to see if the community benefits are flowing through? The government seems more interested in finding a company that is 51% indigenous-owned, which may be fraudulent or deliver no benefits to the communities, to tick a box, rather than doing the real work.
We heard of this in the ArriveCan scandal, where we had Dalian with its partner, Coradix, which received hundreds of millions in government contracts. Coradix would create a venture with Dalian, which had self-identified as indigenous, receive hundreds of millions in contracts, and then not employ indigenous businesses. The government has known about this, which we know from the study, and it has done nothing.
From the OGGO report from 2017, we learned:
...the [Canadian Council for Aboriginal Business] suggested that the federal government award points to bidders that are Progressive Aboriginal Relations...certified, which consists of an independent jury of Indigenous professionals that “evaluates companies on their relationships with [indigenous] businesses and communities in day to day operations.”
This is another ongoing issue we have heard of. We have had first nations groups come to committee and say that they should be the ones who are deciding who is indigenous, so we do not have that fraud. It should be indigenous-led to dictate who are indigenous companies, not led by PSPC, yet what do we have? We have PSPC defining it based on self-identification, so we have rampant fraud worth perhaps hundreds of millions. We are not sure.
Part of the committee's study was on preventing corporate fronts. PSPC “explained that Indigenous status is not required for Indigenous businesses to be recognized as such since that recognition is based on self-identification.” One has to shake their head and ask why we have clearly identified rules to benefit indigenous companies and at the same time the government states that it is okay as long as people self-identify.
Now, of course, we have the ongoing issue of the other Randy. I am not sure, in the current issue, whether he is the other Randy, the other other Randy, or Randy's other Randy, but we have the Minister of Employment's company, of which he is 50% co-owner, bidding as an indigenous business.
The government said to committee that one is not required to be indigenous to bid. They just have to state that they are indigenous. This is the crux of the issue. We have a government that is more interested in photo ops and virtue signalling than in following the rules and getting the work done. I wish I had more time to discuss this issue because it has been building up for six and a half years, but I will just say that the government should be active on this issue now.