(Ottawa) There is a lot of cleaning up to be done in the criteria for defining Indigenous businesses and in the way of applying them, according to a national organization which represents around fifty financing companies from First Nations. The app scandal ArriveCAN revealed gaps in the procurement strategy intended for them.
“We want to ensure that when we talk about an Indigenous business, it is managed and owned at least 51% by Indigenous people and that somewhere, these businesses will have positive and real socio-economic benefits for the communities. “, explains the president of the board of directors of the National Association of Indigenous Financing Companies (ANSAF), Jean Vincent, who was already vice-grand chief of the Huron-Wendat Nation.
The legal structure doesn’t matter. The criteria developed by the ANSAF are not very different from those set out by the federal government, but the latter has difficulty flushing out the usurpers.
The scandal linked to ArriveCAN raised questions about how the government is managing the Indigenous Business Procurement Strategy. Dalian Enterprises Inc., a firm specializing in information technology, which obtained one of the largest shares of public money for the development of this application, was listed in the directory managed by the Ministry of Indigenous Services, since its founder, David Yeo, is a member of the Alderville First Nation in Ontario.
Allegations surfaced in parliamentary committee that the indigenous ownership of Dalian was a front to allow another company, Coradix Technology Consulting, to obtain contracts set aside for indigenous contractors and then subcontract the work to other non-native firms. They were rejected by Mr Yeo during his testimony to a parliamentary committee on Tuesday.
Dalian is currently undergoing a new audit on its eligibility for the indigenous business directory.
Mr. Yeo also shocked parliamentarians on Tuesday by saying that the First Nations, Inuit and Métis Procurement Strategy, which he helped develop, “was not designed to help indigenous communities across the country.” country”, but rather to “help the entrepreneur obtain federal contracts to develop his business”.
Identify cases of theft
“We started working on this before the scandal surrounding the app ArriveCANbut it illustrates why Aboriginal people must take care of defining who Aboriginal people are,” said Dawn Madahbee-Leach, who runs the financial company Waubetek in Ontario and who participated in the development of the criteria.
She notes that a growing number of people are trying to take advantage of the opportunities reserved for them by inventing an Aboriginal identity. For example, “there was a group that called itself Red Sky First Nation in the Thunder Bay area, but it doesn’t actually exist,” she says. There are only 90 in the east of the country.
Mme Madahbee-Leach believes that indigenous organizations are better able to identify these cases of identity theft than federal government officials.
This will be part of the responsibilities of the First Nations Supply Organization created in February. Minister Patty Hajdu indicated in February that the government could transfer its list of entrepreneurs from First Nations, Inuit or Métis to indigenous partners.
“The idea is to ensure that indigenous businesses that will be part of the register [vont satisfaire aux critères]because we do not want to end up with companies that hire an “Indian” and that is nothing other than an forehead and that in reality it is smoke and mirrors,” asserts Mr. Vincent bluntly.
In 2021, the Trudeau government has set itself the objective of annually granting at least 5% of the total value of all federal public contracts to Indigenous businesses, the equivalent of the proportion of the Indigenous population in the country. This represents approximately 1 billion per year. In 2015, they were awarded $93.5 million, or less than 1% of all federal contracts.
“There are few government contracts that go to indigenous businesses, so the idea is to move from words to action, to ensure that the strategy ultimately works,” concludes Mr. Vincent, who also directs the Société de indigenous commercial credit (SOCCA).
David Yeo case: National Defense explains itself
It is the publication of the text of The Press in February on companies in tax havens opened by the founder of Dalian, David Yeo, which led to his suspension from his position as a civil servant at National Defense. Until then, the Department was unaware that the businessman hired in September was still working as a contract worker through his firm, its deputy minister, Bill Matthews, admitted Thursday to the parliamentary public accounts committee. Mr Yeo had not declared his conflict of interest. However, he had been hired full-time because Defense wanted to benefit from his advanced expertise for a long-term project in information technology. His salary as a civil servant was between $88,000 and $100,000. He resigned from his position on March 5, the day before an interview where he was to explain himself to his superiors. Upon investigation, the Ministry realized that he received double remuneration thanks to his consulting work with Dalian, but also with other schemes involving other companies. Dalian has obtained 7.2 million National Defense contracts since 2011 and millions for application ArriveCAN. Despite everything, the use of consultants who are also civil servants should not be completely banned, according to Mr. Matthews. For example, reservists, who are in the Canadian Armed Forces part-time, must work another job to live.
Read “A foot in tax havens”