No problem. I was warned, so I'm not surprised. Thank you.

Yes, there are some challenges. Here on the west coast, for example, first nations were very active in parts of the economy and then were systemically removed. That's not just due to the Indian Act but also collusion on the part of churches, for example, provincial governments, corporations and individuals.

One example of it in my sector is the pass and permit policy under the Indian Act, which wasn't repealed until 2014. It forbid indigenous first nations people specifically from purchasing anything to do with food production, or selling, trading or giving away food. The ghosts of the Indian Act and Indian Act policies currently reverberate throughout institutions and manifest many times as institutionalized racism.

I have a quote here from my friend George, who's first nations from here, this territory, and he says, “Indigenous procurement is economic reconciliation, an opportunity to heal wounds created by racist patriarchal legislation gone unchanged for too long.”

There's lots of work that has been done. No more studies are needed. I just wanted to say that. The Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples, starting in 1991, was very exhaustive, as was the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. They have excellent recommendations to do with this. We don't need to rehash those.

How are we doing? Not well. Socio-economic indicators have been flatlined and, in some cases, are worse. If we look at the Corporations Canada report, we see that less than 1% of corporations in Canada that are publicly traded generally have indigenous people on their boards of directors—0.07%. Less than 1% of senior staff—half a per cent, actually—at publicly traded companies in Canada are Métis, first nations or Inuit.

The average life expectancy among first nations people in B.C. has plummeted, and has dropped by more than six years between 2017 and 2021. First nations unemployment generally has hovered between 10% to 15%, unchanged over the last couple of decades, and it's been double that on reserves.

We just need to look at data. How are we doing? Not very well. The procurement strategy is not working, and I want to give you a few reasons why.

First of all—and I've heard this as I watched some other recordings—it's easy to fake it, and it's easy to say “Hey, it's pretendians,” and kind of focus on that, but that's really not the main problem. It's not a whole system of pretendians that's causing problems. Current systems and policies encourage corruption and fraud, and of course I have examples of this.

One example is procurement based on indigenous ownership. It is common practice for existing non-indigenous businesses to look for and grab an indigenous equity partner just for the purpose of landing a bid. Another example is the GP/LP structure, which is used, for example, to make ventures 99% indigenous owned but give 99% of operating powers to non-indigenous general partners. The standard profit share offered to nations or indigenous partners is 5%, and that's an open secret. This often results in higher job costs, as that 5% then acts as a tariff or additional tax on contracts and jobs.

Critically, there's no active auditing, oversight or enforcement, so it is common practice for promises to be made in a bid and then not delivered, and there are no consequences for that. An example is the minimum indigenous participation within job opportunities. The enforcement falls on already stretched nations, in what I've seen throughout my career. In my whole career, my indigenous heritage and that of my initiative have only ever been audited once, and that was by another first nations organization.

Procurement currently favours legal first nations governments as well, and excludes grassroots entrepreneurs like me, so many first nations struggling with capacity issues lean heavily on non-indigenous professionals and suppliers. Conflict of interest is the norm, with non-indigenous controlling partners putting their interests above that of indigenous partners' values and priorities.

Those are the problems. Now let's talk solutions.

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