Mr. Speaker, a member is asking that I name the individual involved. There were at least two individuals involved, and it is fair to say both of them were named Randy.
The tragic and disgraceful case of the former Liberal minister from Edmonton Centre is notable, but it is also not the only case. The AFN told the government operations committee that, in its view, a majority of companies benefiting from this set-aside were actually shell companies. This explains well the virtue signalling over substance we see from the government when it comes to these issues.
On the one hand, the Liberals want to trumpet the fact that they are putting forward a target for indigenous procurement. On the other, they allowed well-connected Liberal friends who were not indigenous to pretend to be indigenous in order to access these contracts that were supposed to be set aside for indigenous people. What an utterly disgraceful mockery they have made of, I think, the good intentions of Canadians, who asked their government to try to undertake concrete policies that are going to create jobs and opportunity for indigenous peoples, moving forward with economic reconciliation.
They allow non-indigenous pretenders and shysters to benefit from contract set-asides that were supposed to be for indigenous people. At the government operations committee, we had a whistle-blower come and testify about a situation in which a clearly non-indigenous company, which basically had one indigenous employee, created this structure of a joint venture between this one individual and this larger company to try to make it look as though it was an indigenous joint venture. The indigenous person was clearly taken advantage of in this arrangement, but it allowed the non-indigenous company to access a significant number of government contracts under the guise of being part of an indigenous joint venture.
We had the whistle-blower, a former auditor, come before the government operations committee to testify about what happened in this case. Further, he testified that the government was not interested in hearing his feedback. In fact, he was gradually pushed out from being able to provide this feedback. Because of that, we were able to pass a motion at the government operations committee to further probe this particular case that this former auditor and whistle-blower was bringing to the attention of the committee. We had lined up a number of witnesses to hear from, including the company that was part of this joint venture, as well as giving an opportunity to this indigenous individual, who I think was taken advantage of in this arrangement. We had a plan to have this study, but, of course, the rest is history. The government prorogued Parliament, and then we went straight into an election. The Liberals tried to bury this issue of the Liberal indigenous procurement scandal in the ensuing months.
This is very important, and it is something we need to talk about. My understanding is that we will be hearing from the procurement ombud, as well as from the Auditor General, at some point in the next year about the Liberal indigenous procurement scandal. I certainly look forward to those reports. Unfortunately, I suspect that, as with many of the reports that have been done in the past, we will see the government ignore the results of these reports. It will be up to Canadians to look at the work done by the Auditor General and the procurement ombud and to respond to the fact that the Liberals, while sometimes talking a good game on reconciliation, have actually blocked economic development for indigenous people and allowed a situation in which non-indigenous fraudsters take advantage of these set-asides by taking contracts that were supposed to be set aside for indigenous people.
The Liberals have allowed this to happen. They have, at best, looked the other way in order to make it look as though their indigenous procurement numbers are better than they actually are. Canadians will see these reports and will be able to respond to this.
Meanwhile, the persistence of these scandals underlines just how ridiculous the government's approach is today. We have seen these scandals. They have been investigated. There have been auditors the Liberals have maligned and ignored, whistle-blowers needing to come to committee to talk about abuses of the Liberal indigenous procurement program, and now they are bringing a bill saying they are going to create one more commissioner.
How about they listen to the auditors who have already brought forward problems? How about they prepare to meditate deeply on what will no doubt be a damning report from the procurement ombud and from the Auditor General? How about they engage in a more substantive and serious way with the work of existing officers of Parliament, who are calling them out for corruption and abuse of process? How about, instead of focusing on trying to look good on these issues, the government take seriously the need for substantive policy change to catalyze economic development for indigenous peoples and for all Canadians? How about they focus on the results instead of on trying to continually send signals?
That is all Bill C-10 is. It would create an additional officer, an additional commissioner of Parliament, whom the government would no doubt ignore, instead of focusing on the real issues and the real solutions this country and indigenous people need.