Government Operations committee  To me it doesn't matter. It should be a mandatory program. I think INAC could step it up and do a great job. I think PSPC could do a great job. I'd just like to see it have more oomph.

Government Operations committee  I think there are good examples of how people have qualified what is an indigenous business and what's not, so it's just a question of best of breed, I think. I think INAC does a pretty good job of registering first nation and indigenous businesses. There used to be a lot of she

Government Operations committee  I think it's a slippery slope, because when you're bidding on these large contracts, you need the best people for the job. We always look at indigenous first. We always have to hire the best person for the job, so to say that a certain percentage of the people who are going to wo

Government Operations committee  I think it's the reporting. How are they reporting? Is it that you get a standing offer worth $5 million, and that is a set-aside, and they report that as a set-aside spend, or is it the actual business that's being derived out of that standing offer?

Government Operations committee  Yes. I think one of the major issues is that it's not a mandatory program; it's a voluntary program. PSAB and set-asides are voluntary. There's no such thing as a mandatory set-aside. You've proven that. I've talked to lots of departments on lots of opportunities. There are no ma

Government Operations committee  No. Sometimes we ask that they relax some of the requirements a little bit, and that's typically a yes or no. You have a certain amount of time to ask questions with regard to the RFP. You know, they're just so skewed. They just don't make sense. Sometimes they've been changed

Government Operations committee  We still need to work hard to stimulate growth amongst first nations communities and through first nations business. I think it's paramount. It's very, very important. My point is that today it seems to be broken. The PSAB program and the set-asides aren't working properly. As a

Government Operations committee  We're probably about 65% federal government.

Government Operations committee  It's a huge chunk, and it's interesting, because everyone knows that FoxWise is an indigenous company. We're expected to bid on set-asides. Then we spend all the time bidding on these set-asides, and there's a supply arrangement standing offer, but we don't get any work. You re

Government Operations committee  Yes. I just want to state that there are not just community-based businesses out there. I'm not a community-based business, and if I—

Government Operations committee  Well, as I said, we've employed 40 first nations people from across Canada to work within our company, so I think that provides value.

Government Operations committee  I'm not really trying to change anything. I kind of shuck and jive with the changes that are put forth to me and my company. I think the only way we've been providing changes is by delivering second-to-none service, quality, and pricing. I haven't done a lot of lobbying to get an

Government Operations committee  Yes. How about we run our businesses? It's hard enough. Let's run the businesses. I don't know if we're supposed to pull together organizations to fight or push for indigenous procurement.

Government Operations committee  Yes, I think there has been success from a FoxWise perspective. As I said, it's a door-opener. People are interested in talking to you about your business and they want to meet with first nation companies, but we've seen it all from putting in a response. The responses to these

Government Operations committee  There's typically a set-aside stream or indigenous stream, and a non-indigenous stream. The non-indigenous stream tends to get all the work. My company is based in Ottawa, and we have been based here for almost 18 years. The success that we've had is not all based on set-aside, t