Good afternoon, Mr. Chair and committee members.

First, thank you very much for the opportunity to address the committee today.

My name is Rocky Sinclair, and I'm the CEO of the Alberta Indian Investment Corporation. We're an aboriginal financial institution located in Enoch Cree Nation. My comments today, however, will be in my capacity as president of Aksis, which is an indigenous business and professional association formed in 2013. We're located in Edmonton.

Although we have not engaged in a formal survey or study related to federal procurement opportunities for indigenous peoples in Edmonton, we are confident that there are common concerns with the procurement strategy that are applicable to the majority of indigenous businesses regardless of where they are located.

There are processes that can be overly complicated and difficult to navigate. That's known. Also, the reach of the procurement opportunities may not be getting to the indigenous businesses. There are limitations there, certainly. There are also concerns about some of the qualifying criteria that might be too limiting or stringent. That is also known.

For urban indigenous businesses, there are unique challenges, given that they are typically stand-alone in nature and do not have a support system that may be available in other communities. Many indigenous businesses in urban settings are typically interspersed throughout the city and are not concentrated in one area; therefore, they do not have peer support readily available. Also, many of those businesses are owner-operator businesses. The proprietors are very hands-on and do not have the resources to navigate through complex program portals to look for opportunities.

It is our view that if proactive strategies are introduced, along with mandated targets and appropriate metrics, we will see improvements in the uptake of indigenous businesses in securing opportunities with the federal government, and we would recommend that consideration. If there are not significant and fundamental changes to the indigenous procurement strategy, the issues that indigenous businesses have had with the strategy since 1996 will continue.

I have a colleague who is with me, and she will provide further comments. She will take up the balance of my time.

Thank you very much.

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