Proceedings of the Standing Senate Committee on
Aboriginal Peoples
Issue 2 - Evidence - Meeting of June 7, 2006
OTTAWA, Wednesday, June 7, 2006
The Standing Senate Committee on Aboriginal Peoples met this day at 6:20 p.m. to examine and report on the involvement of Aboriginal communities and businesses in economic development activities in Canada.
Senator Gerry St. Germain (Chairman) in the chair.
[English]
The Chairman: Honourable senators, our committee has been mandated to study the involvement of Aboriginal communities and businesses in the economic development of Canada. This study started in the last Parliament under the leadership of our colleague, Senator Sibbeston, who is with us this evening. He was the chair of the committee at the time.
We have heard from a number of witnesses so far. The committee held public hearings last fall in British Columbia and Alberta. Senator Sibbeston and I also visited some locations in the Northwest Territories in March of 2005. The committee is planning on visiting other parts of the country in the coming year.
Before us today, we have Mr. John Bernard, who is from the Madawaska Maliseet First Nation. He is the founder of a successful company named Donna Cona Inc. based here in Ottawa. Mr. Bernard sits on the Board of Directors of the Canadian Chamber of Commerce as well.
Mr. Bernard's company provides information and technology services and career opportunities for Aboriginal people in the high-tech industry. We asked Mr. Bernard to give us his views regarding our study on economic development.
The floor is yours, Mr. Bernard.
John Bernard, President and CEO, Donna Cona Inc.: Mr. Chairman, I will speak today about my company, our experiences and the procurement strategy. First, I would like to thank the Senate committee for inviting me as a witness to speak about Aboriginal economic development.
Donna Cona is an information technology company that was started 10 years ago, just around the time a new federal government program called the Procurement Strategy for Aboriginal Business, better known as PSAB, was launched.
As part of PSAB, the federal government approved a program designed to increase Aboriginal business participation in supplying government procurement requirements to a program of mandatory and selective set-asides. Set-asides are federal government contracts on which only qualified Aboriginal companies or joint ventures can compete.
Donna Cona is a true Canadian business providing consulting and information technology professional services. We compete for many government contracts including, as a qualified Aboriginal firm under PSAB, set-asides. The opportunities under the program have helped us to establish our business and provide excellent opportunities for growth that might not otherwise have been available to us.
It is a matter of pride to us that we have strictly adhered to the intent of the PSAB program, that is, to provide economic opportunities to Aboriginal people and communities. We have hired and trained over 150 Aboriginal employees over the last 10 years.
Based on the foundation in business and technology skills which we provided, many of these employees have gone off to other lucrative and challenging career opportunities. Some have even started their own Aboriginal businesses which continue to hire Aboriginal employees.
Besides investing in Aboriginal employees, Donna Cona's success has allowed us to make financial investments in new Aboriginal businesses. We recently invested over $150,000 in another Aboriginal firm called Bell & Bernard, which is located on a First Nations community and which also hires Aboriginal employees.
Although Donna Cona is proud of the number of Aboriginal people that we directly and indirectly employ, it is our contribution to the Aboriginal community through sponsorships, in-kind services and scholarships that set us apart and identifies us as Aboriginal.
Donna Cona has partnered with other Aboriginal companies and purchased supplies from other Aboriginal companies. Over the last six years, it has given over $1 million in sponsorships and services back to Aboriginal organizations. We have supported artists, athletes and even started a scholarship at Trent University for Aboriginal students who bring innovative IT solutions to their communities.
Our ability to grow so successfully as an Aboriginal firm and to give back to the community and to provide economic development is certainly a result of the PSAB program. My concern is that this program is currently in jeopardy, and I will explain more about this shortly.
I was not always the president of an Aboriginal firm. In fact, I ran a very successful non-Aboriginal firm called Systems Interface, which my two partners and I sold in 1999.
In my mind, starting Donna Cona and calling ourselves an Aboriginal business has more to do with what we do within our company — partnering, procuring and hiring Aboriginals — as to the way we do business. With an information technology firm such as ours, we do not believe there is such a thing as the Aboriginal way of doing business, unless this means doing business honestly, ethically and with a commitment to deliver at any cost.
During the time I was trying to grow Systems Interface, I found that I was faced with the challenge of persuading our clients that even though we were small to mid-size we could deliver quality service.
With Donna Cona, however, I was faced with not only this challenge but another one that was much different and one I had trouble understanding at first. If Systems Interface did not deliver, or if it delivered sloppy work, then the reputation of Systems Interface suffered. If a non-Aboriginal firm messed up, then the non-Aboriginal firm's reputation paid the price. However, with Donna Cona, I found that all Aboriginal firms would often be painted with the same wide brush. If one Aboriginal firm did not deliver, all of our reputations would suffer. This stereotyping was difficult to deal with. I often found myself stressing over things we had not done instead of focusing on the good things we had done.
Another challenge, and without a doubt our biggest challenge, was trying to recruit and retain qualified Aboriginal employees. Information technology is not normally the trade of choice for many Aboriginals, and with our clients requiring years of experience and oftentimes bilingualism, it is difficult to find qualified Aboriginals.
To make the challenge even more interesting, after Donna Cona would spend a considerable amount of time training and placing our Aboriginal employees, our client, the federal government, would occasionally offer them a job, promising them security and accelerated future advancement. I certainly could not compete and to complain was something a good company does very delicately, as you do not bite the hand that feeds you.
As you can imagine from the success of Donna Cona and our contribution back to the Aboriginal community, the Procurement Strategy for Aboriginal Business has been successful in providing Aboriginal economic development and benefits.
Unfortunately, there has been a lot of negative press recently about the program and how it is being abused. I will not deny that some companies, Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal, are taking advantage of the program by using shell companies to secure large set-aside contracts with no intent on building Aboriginal capacity. Shell companies are simply joint ventures or partnerships where there is a token Aboriginal person or firm involved with no prior experience or intent on building Aboriginal capacity.
I caution on using the term ``abuse'' and suggesting there are fraudulent activities occurring. There is nothing illegal happening. The government is still getting value for its money, albeit not all set-aside contracts are delivering the planned Aboriginal economic development that the program intended. Let us not throw the baby out with the bath water.
The biggest problem with set-aside policy is with the weak rules surrounding joint ventures and partnerships that pretty much allow Aboriginal persons or firms to bring nothing but the Aboriginal identity to the table. With small start-up contracts this is fine. However, with very large multi-million-dollar contracts, it is very hard to swallow when an Aboriginal company or person operating out of their basement with absolutely no prior experience beats out established, growing Aboriginal companies simply because they partnered with a large non-Aboriginal firm.
The fix to this problem is actually very simple. Like non-Aboriginal companies, Aboriginal companies should learn to walk before they run. On very large contracts, the Aboriginal side of the joint venture should also have to demonstrate that they have some prior experience with the contract requirement. Depending on how large the contract is, being able to demonstrate certain historical business capacity would encourage Aboriginal companies to grow if they want to qualify to go after bigger contracts.
Today, the program actually discourages Aboriginal companies from wanting to grow. Its definition requires that any company with over six employees, at least one third must be of Aboriginal descent. Given the challenge of hiring Aboriginals, most companies would rather remain small if they do not have to grow to meet this requirement.
The definition of a set-aside contract contains another requirement meant to ensure that the Aboriginal side of joint ventures would prosper by requiring that 33 per cent of the contract value is performed by the Aboriginal firm. The first time the policy ran into a problem with the 33 per cent requirement was in the beginning when they struggled to demonstrate how an Aboriginal firm reselling product they did not manufacture could show 33 per cent value. As most Aboriginal firms that deal with the federal government are product resellers, this became an impossible task to demonstrate, and eventually the 33 per cent rule was relaxed and in most cases not even considered for product sale contracts.
Recently, however, more and more Aboriginal firms are starting to break into the professional services business. We are now finding companies that only a few short months ago had no experience with professional services are subcontracting out a considerable number of resources. This has caused the industry to become quite concerned and it has demand that audits be done on these Aboriginal firms to demonstrate how they are building Aboriginal capacity.
Unfortunately, the interpretation of the 33 per cent content rule has come up, and now the government requires that in professional services contracts, 33 per cent of the resources must be of Aboriginal descent. This is in addition to the current mandatory requirement that any company over six employees must contain 33 per cent.
There are simply not enough Aboriginal people in the labour market with the appropriate skills and experience as required by the federal government to meet this 33 per cent requirement on large contracts. The problem is that most federal procurement requires highly skilled resources such as project managers, systems analysts, management consultants, software developers and so on. Any supplier to the federal government and private sector, both Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal, will agree that finding these qualified people in mainstream Canada is challenging enough. Finding them in Aboriginal communities to meet the 33 per cent requirement is just not possible. This change in policy interpretation will make most Aboriginal firms non-compliant on current contracts. It will not only stunt their growth, but it will actually cause their demise.
As a result, Aboriginal skills development will cease to exist and the economic benefits to Aboriginal peoples of growing Aboriginal firms in the new information-based economy will not happen. This will eliminate the opportunity for Aboriginal firms to participate in a service-based, highly skilled economy.
The only business opportunity remaining for Aboriginal firms through the PSAB program will be product resale business with no service components. This will promote small backdoor businesses with little growth expectations and no Aboriginal skill development or employment opportunities for Aboriginal people.
More pressing is that due to the current uncertainty with the status of this policy interpretation, federal governments are now hesitant to issue new set-aside contracts or to renew existing ones, which has caused a significant drop in the number of Aboriginal opportunities.
I will provide the committee with three recommendations. The first is that the government change the 33 per cent Aboriginal content requirement interpretation to mean 33 per cent value of the contract as opposed to Aboriginal resources.
Second, it is recommended that Public Works and Government Services Canada immediately lift any delay or hold they have on set-asides.
The final recommendation is that the Treasury Board change the definition of joint ventures and partnerships in the set-aside policy to require a tier-level approach for the Aboriginal side. The level of prior experience should depend on the size of the contract.
[Translation]
Senator Gill: Thank you for your presentation. Economic development is vitally important to Aboriginal communities. You talked about stereotypes and the fact that they were an impediment to the development of Aboriginal businesses. As an Aboriginal business, what more do you need to do to market your services, compared to non-Aboriginal enterprises?
[English]
Mr. Bernard: You are right. As I said, I tend to focus on all the things I have not done as opposed to talking about the things I have done. I feel like I am always on the defensive.
We feel that we must promote all the good things, as I have done today. We tend to promote how good we are, the quality of our services and our commitment to deliver.
We struggle with these types of things. Every time we take two steps forward, we take one step backward. Unfortunately, this is what happens when an Aboriginal firm sues the government. I have been accused of suing the government. I have never sued the government and I never will. We hear, ``You Aboriginal firms sue the government.'' This has been a real challenge for us.
Another comment we face is: ``The last time I went to an Aboriginal firm you guys did not deliver. I waited six months before I got my computer.'' Well, that was not me, but we are all lumped together.
What can we do? I do not know, senator. That is a good question. I will repeat over and over that we are committed to deliver, that this is not who we are, but I think it is a fact of life at the moment.
[Translation]
Senator Gill: I have a question concerning mobility. Would you say that in order to succeed, an Aboriginal person, for example, someone from Atlantic Canada, must be willing to relocate to a large urban centre such as Montreal, Vancouver, Toronto or Ottawa? Is this a pre-requisite for Aboriginals if they wish to succeed in business?
[English]
Mr. Bernard: In my field, which is information technology, it is an obligation. I could not have built Donna Cona in my home community of Madawaska/Maliseet, as much as we are surrounded by a city. That is a necessity.
I truly believe that information technology will help us to be able to stay. I am not sure whether senators are familiar with the eBay story, which is one of the largest companies around. It was started because someone wanted to auction off some PEZ candy dispensers. Someone in Old Crow, Yukon, could have done that had they had the infrastructure. Unfortunately, most of our communities do not have the necessary infrastructure.
Senator Gill: You understand that there are many cultural problems associated with Aboriginal people moving from their communities. You are saying, then, that it is a condition for a business to succeed.
Mr. Bernard: Is it a condition to succeed for Donna Cona? Absolutely. I could not have built Donna Cona in my community or in a First Nation community. It had to be in urban downtown.
Whether it is a condition for all businesses to succeed I do not know.
Senator Peterson: Mr. Bernard, I am the director of a company that has extensive operations in Northern Saskatchewan. One of the criteria we established is that 50 per cent of the workforce must be residents of Northern Saskatchewan. We have been able to achieve this up to the management level, at which point we require post- secondary training, particularly in the sciences. It sounds like your business would require that level of expertise. How has your company been able to achieve that?
Mr. Bernard: That is an excellent question. It has been a struggle and a challenge from day one. We have come up with ideas on mentoring, for one, but my client, the federal government, unfortunately is not forgiving. When government says it wants someone with five years of experience on a certain product, I cannot bring in someone with two years and say, ``He is Aboriginal and can you accept him?'' It is not acceptable. Obviously, we have hired non- Aboriginals where needed.
In return, Donna Cona has given much more back to the community in other ways. My office administration, my receptionist, my database administration are First Nations people and they work for my company. Even though I get a contract for the work, I might not always be able to provide Aboriginal resources. However, the contract helps me build my company such that I am able to hire First Nations people. Indirectly, it is Aboriginal economic development, but it is a continuing struggle that we will always have.
Senator Campbell: How much of your business is PSAB related?
Mr. Bernard: It was 60 per cent as at May 31, but the department hired 22 of my employees. I am probably down to less than 50 per cent now with PSAB.
Senator Campbell: That is a success story. We are talking about people being accepted in different fields. It must hurt when someone takes 22 of your employees; but, at the same time, you are right in that it is an unenviable role. On the one hand you are in a business and on the other hand you are in a mentorship hoping that all of your people go forward.
In Vancouver, we have a very large Aboriginal youth population. We are continually looking for ways to keep them in school and, more important, to have them graduate and go on to university. Have you any suggestions in this respect, given your line of business? We can find them easy enough, but how do we motivate them to go into the information industry?
Mr. Bernard: That is an interesting question. In 1999, we sold one of my companies for quite a few million dollars, and it afforded me the opportunity to travel to close to 100 First Nations communities — on my coin — to speak to the high school students. I tried to encourage them to stay in school. The carrot that I dangled was technology. I told them that technology was coming to the community and that those who graduated would be the first to get the jobs. Technology was not there at the time I was doing this in 1999. I would have predicted in 2001 that by 2006 there would be all kinds of technology. I am sorry to say that there still is not much technology in some of the northern communities.
In 1999, at Trent University, we established a scholarship for an Aboriginal person in computer science. I went back three years later to ask how it was doing. I was shocked because not one Aboriginal person had applied for my computer science scholarship.
Senator Campbell: Why, though? I do not understand.
Mr. Bernard: Universities are encouraging First Nations people to get into native studies and other related fields, but there should be more encouragement to get into engineering and computer science.
Senator Campbell: Your scholarship is for computer science.
Mr. Bernard: I had to change the scholarship. We broadened it so that any First Nations person that could demonstrate that they had provided IT solutions in their community would qualify.
Senator Campbell: It would seem to me that this kind of industry is perfect for the satellite model because you can work from virtually anywhere, provided you have the infrastructure. We have heard that some of the northern communities do not have that infrastructure. This would seem to be a perfect fit for young people.
Mr. Bernard: I certainly believe so.
Senator Campbell: That astounds me.
The Chairman: Is the problem a lack of role models?
Mr. Bernard: There is a lack of role models in computer science and related fields.
The Chairman: Most of our Aboriginal students are directed into native studies.
Mr. Bernard: There are many First Nations role models, such as Phil Fontaine.
Senator Segal: I thank our guest for his presentation and for coming here today to help us sort through this issue. I pay my tribute to the remarkable entrepreneurial contribution he has made through his company and his First Nation with respect to the larger problem we are attempting to address.
I was in Old Crow, Yukon, this past weekend. I was very impressed by Chief Joe Linklater and the entrepreneurial nature of the Vuntut Gwitchin First Nation. They own 49 per cent of Air North and are in the process of getting into the cellular telephone business with some new technology, which hopefully will spread the signal over large parts of the tundra more efficiently and effectively.
I was troubled by some of the definitions, such as the distinction between an Aboriginal business and Aboriginals who are in business. I would ask that you reflect on that for a moment in the following context. When Robert Reich was Bill Clinton's Secretary of Labour, he asked: ``Which is the American company — an American-owned company in Taiwan flying the Taiwanese flag, employing Taiwanese people, paying Taiwanese taxes and contributing to the Taiwanese community; or a Taiwanese-owned company in Connecticut flying the American flag, paying American taxes, employing Americans and contributing to the local Connecticut community?'' He answer was that it did not matter. What was important was that people had economic opportunity to realize their full potential as participants in the economy on their own terms in both those countries, and that context made that happen.
When you worry about the stereotyping of Aboriginal firms or attitudes that are unconstructive and you define an Aboriginal firm, are you defining it in terms of ownership, in other word, here is who owns the firm and they are First Nations people? Are you defining it in terms of an employment policy? You have made it clear you are utterly non- discriminatory in terms of whom you hire. You hire whoever is necessary to provide superb service to your clients, which is what the entrepreneurial ethic would suggest. Is it entrepreneurial because it seeks to provide specific opportunities for First Nations kids as they come out of university? Is it Aboriginal because it does that?
It is not that I am troubled. We have seen in the United States for many years policies that have favoured what they refer to as minority-owned firms so as to help those firms get into the economic mainstream and diversify, at least in terms of government procurement, the fairness with which those dollars are spent. I am in favour of that.
I want to understand from you, who has been a practitioner out there at the coal face, what you mean by an Aboriginal firm. What do you think the model should be going forward? What can we as a committee recommend with respect to either tax policies or financial development and incentives from government that would move the ball down the field relatively quickly in your judgment?
Mr. Bernard: I am asked such questions all the time. What is an Aboriginal business? Certainly, under PSAB, there is a definition. For those of you who do not know, the definition of an Aboriginal business under the procurement strategy is that the business must be 51 per cent owned or controlled by an Aboriginal person. If the company is bigger than six people, one third of the employees must be Aboriginal.
Senator Segal: Are you comfortable with that definition as a practical business matter?
Mr. Bernard: No.
Donna Cona meets that definition, but that is not why I call my business an Aboriginal business. Sure, I am a Maliseet from Madawaska, New Brunswick, but the reason we call ourselves an Aboriginal firm is because of the things we do from within. I definitely have a preference for hiring Aboriginals, but I will not compromise. Every Aboriginal employee who works for Donna Cona is qualified, and they know it. If they for one moment thought I was hiring them as token Indians, then it would go nowhere.
We partner with other Aboriginal firms when appropriate. We procure our supplies and services from Aboriginal firms. I have purchased calendars, pens and papers from those firms. We sponsor Aboriginal events. I have given over $1 million dollars in cash back to Aboriginal organizations. I have given over $150,000 to the National Aboriginal Achievement Foundation, to the AFN, to the National Aboriginal Health Organization, you name it. I have also given to hockey teams. This is all part of why I proudly call myself an Aboriginal firm. I have no guilt when I go after a set- aside contract, which is a preferential treatment, because I paid my dues to go after that contract.
It is hard to see other firms that go after that when they do not do any of this type of capacity building and they just became Aboriginal two years ago through some program they found. It is difficult for me to swallow, but that is my definition. I am not comfortable with the simple 51 per cent ownership rule.
Senator Segal: There was a former premier of Newfoundland and Labrador and a former minister of the Crown under a previous administration for whom I have a tremendous amount of admiration. I am referring to Brian Tobin. One of the issues upon which he allegedly left the government of the time was the failure of the then Minister of Finance to support the broad application of broadband — the big trunk, if you wish — for the purposes of the communications technology world into rural and small town Canada. That was the story that emerged at the time.
You would understand this because of your technical proficiency and your firm's focus better than most. When one looks at rural poverty across Canada, of which our fellow Aboriginal Canadians carry far more than their fair share, you often hear that the underservicing of rural areas by that broadband service makes it difficult for small entrepreneurial enterprises to be set up. I am talking about firms that depend on that kind of computer linkage. Senator Campbell said you can be anywhere. You can be anywhere if there is a connection with which you can properly engage and the infrastructure is there.
I am interested in your views because of where your firm is situated in the large map of technology services. In your view do policy initiatives by the federal government in that regard make any kind of difference at all, or is it so detached from the day-to-day challenges of an Aboriginal seeking a place in the workforce that it is not all that relevant?
Mr. Bernard: I am 120 per cent behind infrastructure. I believe that infrastructure up North should be a huge priority, and it should be subsidized by the government. If the railroad company was built 100 years ago the way we are trying to build the Internet up North, it would take 13 trains to go across the country. The government needs to recognize that there is no return on investment until we get it up there. If you want to buy a shirt, you can go to Wal- Mart. If you want to go to school, you can attend Willis College. People up North cannot do that. Through teleconferencing, telehealth and e-commerce, they would have access to those things. I am also a good friend of Brian Tobin, and he and I are linked through that infrastructure.
I was part of the First Nations network. I am now working on a major project trying to light up the fibre backbone along the Canadian Pacific Railroad to link up First Nations communities. The Internet is not fast enough for video conferencing. I am a huge believer in infrastructure, and I believe that will take us out of the Dark Ages up there.
Senator Sibbeston: Mr. Bernard, I would like to get your views on the situation across the country. In much of the work of our committee we have heard from many people, including academics and those from government. We have had the opportunity to go to Western Canada. We had hearings in British Columbia and Alberta. However, most of the business people from whom we heard amongst First Nations and Metis and so forth are situated on a reserve or nearby. You are situated in a city. I see there is no link from your reserve.
I am wondering about the climate in Canada, as it were. We have seen that a certain number of Aboriginal businesses are established as a result of large industrial projects. For example, I refer to the Yellowknife area, the Tlicho and the Dogrib people who have had business opportunities with respect to a diamond mine. I am aware of some of the big corporations that operate up in Fort McMurray. Are the big companies in our country beginning to have more of a social conscience? Are they making more effort to hire and enter into contracts with Aboriginal people? What is your view in that regard?
Mr. Bernard: I was in Northern Alberta three weeks ago. I met with EnCana and Shell. I was shocked at how dedicated and committed they are. They gave Keyano College over $1 million in subsidies just to help the Aboriginals. I believe that corporate Canada is starting to lean toward the Aboriginals.
In the United States, there is an obligation toward minorities. If a private sector company receives government funding, it must demonstrate some work done with these status minorities. In Canada, it is more of an honour system. Nothing is mandatory. There is no federal government department saying, ``They must demonstrate so much Aboriginal content.'' In corporate Canada, it is all done on goodwill. When I talk to a good friend of mine about why the banks are showing such an interest, he says it is because of the land claims. There will be billions of dollars flowing through Aboriginal hands; let us get friendly with them.
Of course, IBM has now started an Aboriginal program.
I would not say the average Canadian corporation is looking at Aboriginals and saying, ``There is a pool of resources there.'' They seem to be looking internationally. I do not know if that is where the government is looking, but I know every time we Aboriginals listen to the government talk about looking internationally for resources, it is like a slap in the face. What about all these resources at home? Let us focus on how to get them up and running, and potentially educated and experienced.
Senator Sibbeston: I am also conscious that Aboriginal people tend to gravitate to programs such as education and social work. Financial administration and accounting are the most challenging and difficult careers and professions to get into. I recognize that it will still take some time to happen.
Besides simply going out and beating a drum, as it were, and encouraging people, do you feel that the Aboriginal people themselves are doing enough or doing anything to encourage their people to move to your type of technology? I have a primitive mind and am not as quick technologically speaking or computer-wise as other people. I say that jokingly, but I do know that Aboriginal people, particularly in the far parts of the North, have just come from igloos and tepees in the last 30, 40, 50 years. It is a big jump for them to the information age in which you are involved.
I see it as a tremendous challenge and opportunity. What can be done so that more Aboriginal people can get into the fields in which you are operating?
Mr. Bernard: It is definitely a matter of infrastructure. When I would go up North and speak to a class of 30 or 40 students, I would ask the children if they had ever been on the Internet. Almost every one of them would put their hands up because of programs like SchoolNet. When I asked who in the class liked the Internet, I might get one student.
Imagine asking that question in downtown Toronto or Ottawa. All the children would love the Internet. Why do they not like the Internet up North? It is because it is slow; it is saturated. They are evolving the way we did. People say to me, ``They have to evolve the way you did. We started with 2400 baud and 9600 baud.'' However, that is not true. When we were doing 9600 baud, websites were designed for that speed. Today, websites are designed for 1, 2, 3 megs down. They are still operating at 2400 baud. They are sitting there forever waiting for the website to download. They get tired. They cancel the download. It is for that reason that they do not like the Internet, which is a real shame: Talk about exposure to the world and information.
Senator Dyck: I was at a conference in Saskatoon last week, the Interprovincial Association on Native Employment. I listened to Lester Lafond speak. He talked about economic development and how it was very important for both individuals and for First Nations themselves to create wealth. Fortunately, Muskeg Lake is in a position of having an urban reserve, so it is possible to do both First Nation wealth development as well as individual wealth development. In your case, you as an individual have created a company and now you are at the point where you are trying to encourage others to follow your footsteps, come into your company and perhaps at some point themselves create a company.
You are obviously a role model. What is it about you that allowed you to get where you are? Why did you go into a career in science? Many of our First Nations students are being streamed into teaching and social work. Now we are encouraging them to go into mathematics and science programs, but that is really just starting. What was it that got you going?
Mr. Bernard: My community is like every other First Nations community. We have a deplorable graduation record. More than half of my First Nation did not graduate. All seven of my family graduated. People ask: Why did your family graduate? This is because my father lost his job for no other reason than a company bought out the company he was in and fired him because he did not have a high school diploma. My father was humiliated and hurt. He moved back to the reserve and swore that he would never work for a company again. He put the fear of God into us that we had better graduate, which is why we graduated.
What does graduating from high school do? Does it only give us an education? No. What it also gives us is self- confidence. You ask me what I have. I have self-confidence. I went to university and finished university. I have this self-confidence. Most First Nations people do not. I speak to them and they will not even look me in the eye. They will look up and down, but they cannot look me in the eye. First Nations people lack self-confidence. Why will they not graduate? I have been to a hundred First Nations and found out that most First Nations people say, ``Why should I graduate? My brother and sister and mother did not graduate; the welfare officer, the bus driver, the chief in council did not graduate.'' What motivation is there for them to graduate? As long as they are on reserve, that is okay, but the moment they move off reserve and they do not have a high school diploma, there is that issue of self-confidence.
Senator Dyck: It is almost like there is a need for another company to start up in order to create partnerships between the companies that are looking for trained employees and the educational institute that can do that. You bring groups together, identify a group and pull them through.
Mr. Bernard: Where the government can help is through programs such as the PSAB. It is a good program. It has its problems and holes, but they can be fixed. Programs like that one certainly got us going.
I did not start out as an Aboriginal entrepreneur. I ran a non-Aboriginal business first. I did not think it would be any different, but I was quite surprised to find out it was. I believe there should be more of the programs that the government puts through, but given the line of business I am in, infrastructure is where it is at. With the proper infrastructure, image the things that you could do and the people you could hire. It would just open their eyes to so many things.
Senator Segal: I want to ask the question I ask at every one of these meetings, and that is the DIAND question. DIAND spends about $9 billion a year on programs and activities and other things. There is a radical view to which I do not necessarily subscribe. It says that if you shut DIAND down, you would have $20,000 per Aboriginal Canadian, for starters, whether you distributed the money that way or to First Nations or to other groups or to institutions that are working because they are part of the First Nations community. The thinking is that you might be further ahead, given the kind of bureaucratic process that we have now, which I am sure involves well-meaning individuals who work hard but are constrained by the history of the department and the challenges.
I would be interested in your perspective on that suggestion. I am not asking you to be supportive or critical of a particular government department. However, on balance, has the presence of a federal government department dating back to colonial times and administering, in trust, the lives of others been helpful relative to the very trenchant example you offered a few moments ago of your father's experience — putting the fear of God into individuals relative to him going forward and making a huge and wonderful contribution? Does that colonial structure help, however it might now be modernized and updated? Is it part of the solution? Is it part of the problem? What would you do about it?
Mr. Bernard: Phil Fontaine is a friend of mine. We were flying out to Calgary, and I told Phil that if I was the Minister of Indian Affairs, I would give him 24 months to change the electoral process so that the Aboriginal people vote him into office. If he did not, I would create another AFN that did work that way, and I would delegate my authority as the Minister of Indian Affairs to him. Right now, the national chief has no authority. When my community was up in arms and we felt our chief was cheating us, we could not go to Phil Fontaine, the national chief, because the national chief would say, ``That is my constituent. He votes me in, so I am not going to go in.'' He had no real authority.
I believe that if we are going to get respect, we need to govern ourselves. We do that by first getting that authority. That authority comes from the minister, because the Minister of Indian Affairs is the authority. If the people elected the national chief, perhaps the Minister of Indian Affairs would delegate his or her authority to the national chief, or at least a portion of it. We are now starting to govern ourselves, and through that, I believe, comes respect. It is a start. I certainly do not have all the answers, but Phil said he would never vote for me.
Senator Segal: Let us assume for a moment that it is next week and Bill Gates has read the testimony before this committee. He says, ``I want to find this guy, John Bernard, because he really gets it.'' He calls you on the phone and says, ``My number is $5 billion. Tell me how to spend it to really change the sorts of things Senator Dyck and others talked about.'' Tell me what you would do. What would you tell him?
Mr. Bernard: I would be providing infrastructure.
Senator Segal: More than people and kids and scholarships and entrepreneurship training, you would say, ``Give us that hard, soft-wired kind of infrastructure first, and if we get that in place we can build on it.''
Mr. Bernard: It would not cost $5 billion to add the infrastructure. When Phil Fontaine approached our company to help him with his campaign to raise funds, we said, ``What is your campaign all about, Phil? Is it social services or economic development?'' He assured us it was economic development, so we agreed.
Senator Campbell: What would happen if your scholarship was for any university across Canada in computer science rather than just Trent, not that there is anything wrong with Trent University? However, you would expand the opportunities. I am still shocked at that. You can go to any university across Canada with a dollar figure on the scholarship, obviously, but would that not then plug into many of these other communities?
The kids I talk to in Vancouver are into the Internet, but they are hard-wired. They have the whole nine yards. They understand; they get it. Maybe through that, it can grow out. I agree with you about the need for infrastructure, but is that a possibility?
Mr. Bernard: It is certainly not a possibility to take my existing scholarship because it is currently committed to Trent.
Senator Campbell: What if we wire it back to computer science? I am serious. This is something of great interest. What if we wire it back to straight computer science? For instance, the Aboriginal youth in Vancouver that I am very involved with, I could say, ``Look, here is an opportunity for you. This is unbelievable.''
Mr. Bernard: We have talked about creating another scholarship, and we are not intending to make it specific to any effort. It would be a Donna Cona scholarship, so we would invite First Nations. It was what we should have done with Trent University. Trent impressed me with its First Peoples House of Learning. We threw another $20,000 at them for that. The next one will be much broader and open to not just universities but colleges.
The Chairman: I am inspired by you, Mr. Bernard. I grew up in Manitoba as a Metis and was the first kid who graduated from high school in the community in which I lived.
The question I have got to ask you is whether Indian, Metis and Inuit peoples, as categorized under section 35 of the Constitution, are part of Donna Cona?
Mr. Bernard: Absolutely. Yes, they are.
The Chairman: The self-confidence factor is the largest one. I have travelled with Senator Sibbeston and other senators here, and you are right. If you talk to young Aboriginal people, the biggest challenge they face is looking you in the eye. I gather it is because they just do not feel that they have the right to do this. I can only compliment you on your motivational and inspirational tours. We have to think outside the box because we can have all the institutions, equipment and infrastructure in the world, but we still must have role models who will drive the engine of desire in our Aboriginal youth.
I appreciated your presentation, the sincerity and the leadership you have shown in the Aboriginal community. I am sure Senator Sibbeston is as inspired as I am because we have travelled a lot of this country together, along with other committee members, and we have run across success stories, whether it is Westbank, Kamloops or other places. The fact is that you have done it in a different field. You have not necessarily done it with land. You have done it with technology. That in itself is unique in the Aboriginal business community. I want to thank you again for your time.
Honourable senators, we were to have heard today from Professor David Newhouse of Trent University, but unfortunately he fell ill. We are very close as well, senators, to getting a confirmation from Indian and Northern Affairs Canada, whose officials will come here next Tuesday morning for a briefing on our other order of reference from the Senate, which deals with Canada's specific claims policy. I look forward to seeing you at that meeting next Tuesday morning.
Is there any other business, senators?
Senator Sibbeston: I would just like to thank Mr. Bernard for his attendance here today and wish him well in all his future endeavours.
The Chairman: It was an honour and a pleasure, Mr. Bernard, to have you appear as a witness before the committee today.
Mr. Bernard: As part of Donna Cona Inc.'s contribution to the community, every year we produce a calendar. We seek out 12 up-and-coming Aboriginal artists and recognize them by putting their work in the calendar. I have 15 calendars here, for those of you who are interested. They are full of Aboriginal art. Each month, an Aboriginal artist is recognized.
The Chairman: When you are going out the door, look to your right and you will see one of the pieces of art that was donated by Senator Serge Joyal. It is quite unique.
I would certainly like a copy of the calendar, and I am sure that members would like a copy as well.
The committee adjourned.