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House Hansard - 75

44th Parl. 1st Sess.
May 19, 2022 10:00AM
Context: House Hansard - 75 - May/19/22
Mr. Paul Chiang (Markham—Unionville, Lib.)
  • May/19/22 1:59:24 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, as parliamentary secretary to the Minister of Housing and Diversity and Inclusion, I am proud to stand in the House today to recognize May as Asian Heritage Month and to thank Canadians of Asian heritage for their immense contributions to our country. In Canada, diversity is a fact and inclusion is a choice. There is still work to be done to make Canada a country that is truly equal for everyone. For the last two centuries, immigrants have come to Canada from East Asia, Southern Asia, Western and Southeast Asia, bringing with them rich heritage representing many languages, ethnicities and religions. While the Asian community itself is very diverse, we are also united in helping build stronger communities and standing up to hate and discrimination in all its forms. I have been proud to celebrate Asian Heritage Month with friends, colleagues and constituents this month, and I look forward to continuing to represent Canadians of Asian heritage in the House.
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Context: House Hansard - 75 - May/19/22
Hon. Filomena Tassi (Minister of Public Services and Procurement, Lib.)
  • May/19/22 8:30:18 p.m.
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Madam Chair, I would like to assure Canadians that I am fully committed to ensuring the diversity of the Government of Canada's procurement process. This is an extremely important initiative for me. As part of our efforts to diversify, we have issued RFIs to gather input from Canadian Black businesses, businesses owned and operated by persons with disabilities, and businesses owned or led by members of the LGBTQ2+ community. We have held round table discussions with Black businesses and indigenous businesses to hear first-hand how we can increase their participation in the procurement process. In addition, through mandate commitments, we are going to continue to advance government-wide initiatives to increase diversity of bidders on government contracts. We are going to continue to move forward on other procurement commitments, including better tools, simpler processes and increased opportunities for diverse businesses. We are making good progress on the indigenous procurement front. We are modelling this work with broader diversity objectives within the supply chain. We have a supplier diversity policy that came into force a year ago. That gives us more latitude in how we run procurement processes. We are now turning that into an actual program of work as to how we can use those flexibilities to increase the diversity in supply chains. There is a lot of outreach that is being done with different groups to try to make it easier, including e-procurement. We developed a policy on social procurement to leverage purchasing power, to achieve socio-economic objectives and increase supplier diversity. The policy will contribute to reducing barriers and enhancing economic and social opportunities for under-represented groups, such as indigenous peoples, Black and racialized Canadians, women, LGBTQ2+ Canadians and other under-represented groups, including socio-economic objectives in federal procurement, which improves best value for Canadians by balancing spending with achieving important policy goals. This I spoke about before. It is important for me. It is not just the right thing to do and the morally correct thing to do, but it is also the smart thing to do because once we open up opportunities, bring down barriers and have a level playing field, that creates a system where people who previously faced barriers are going to be supported. That is exactly why, at the end of the day, it is not just the right thing to do, but economically we can elevate, support and allow companies to have access and experience success, because we know the potential is there. We want to tap into and unleash that potential because we know the benefits that it is going to create. We are currently asking suppliers to voluntarily self-declare if they identify with an under-represented group. This is in line with other self-attestation approaches used in the procurement process. We will work with other departments and under-represented businesses and associations to explore and improve the certification approach, including the consideration of third-party certification. These are some of the measures that we are taking in this regard.
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