Liberal minister’s former business questioned over ‘Indigenous’ claims in government contract bids

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A company that belonged to federal Employment Minister Randy Boissonnault said it was Indigenous-owned while bidding on federal contracts.

While Boissonnault, who at the time co-owned Global Health Imports, has said in the past that he is Indigenous, he recently stated publicly that he is white.

“Global Health is a wholly owned Indigenous and LGBTQ Company,” Boissonnault’s former business partner, Stephen Anderson, specified in a June 2020 bid by Global Health Imports Corporation (GHI) for a contract to supply face masks. National Post obtained the bid through an access-to-information request.

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Anderson repeated the statement in a follow-up message to Public Services and Procurement Canada (PSPC) and called the company “Aboriginal” twice when submitting another bid to supply face shields.

The federal government tells potential suppliers that they can only identify themselves as “Aboriginal” if they are on an official qualified list of enterprises eligible to benefit from procurement programs that favour Indigenous–owned firms. GHI was not on it, a government spokesperson said.

Neither Boissonnault nor Anderson answered National Post’s questions about which First Nations, Métis or Inuit groups they belonged to.

Now, some Indigenous leaders and researchers in procurement and ethics want to know if the company told the truth.

A spokesperson for Boissonnault’s department did not directly respond when asked whether the minister knew that Anderson called GHI “Indigenous” in these bids.

“Mr. Anderson had full responsibility for the bids,” Alice Hansen said. Both of the bids in question were unsuccessful, she noted.

“Mr. Anderson is not an individual whose actions and choices (the minister) would want reflecting on him,” she said, adding later that “Mr. Boissonnault never consented to Mr. Anderson making any claims on his heritage.”

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GHI eventually landed a federal contract to supply disposable gloves to Elections Canada in January 2024. It is not identified as Indigenous-owned in that contract.

When Anderson submitted the bids in June 2020, he and Boissonnault were communicating several times per day, they both have said. This continued until Boissonnault won back his Edmonton Centre seat in the September 2021 federal election.

The new information about GHI’s bids coincides with parliamentary hearings examining federal procurement from Indigenous suppliers through a program called the Procurement Strategy for Indigenous Business (PSIB). The inquiry launched after a Global News report described methods that non-Indigenous businesses allegedly use to access the PSIB.

The stakes are high. According to government figures, the program helped participants to land $1.6 billion in contracts in 2022.

Shannin Metatawabin, CEO of the National Aboriginal Capital Corporations Association (NACCA), an advocacy organization representing Indigenous financial institutions, said the questions about GHI are symptomatic of the PSIB’s problems.

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“There needs to be an inquiry,” he said, into GHI’s bids and any similar cases.

“It’s become so commonplace in government that they let things slide,” he said. “I want to see actors that are posing as Indigenous … to be charged.”

Whether or not a bid succeeds, “You’re harming the community by taking that opportunity away,” he said. “Whether it’s food out of their mouths and social impact on the community or a job.”

PSPC did not answer questions about whether GHI’s assertions about being Indigenous-owned influenced the department’s evaluation of its bids.

PSPC spokeswoman Michèle LaRose said a new policy that came into effect in May empowers its registrar of ineligibility and suspension to bar unethical suppliers from receiving federal contracts.

PSPC “has not referred any cases of inaccurate claims of Indigeneity by a supplier to the RCMP,” she said.

When GHI submitted the bids in June 2020, the federal government was struggling with the COVID-19 pandemic. Millions of dollars in government medical supply contracts were on offer.

To qualify as an Indigenous supplier, GHI needed to be at least 51-per-cent owned by people who are citizens of First Nations, Métis and Inuit communities, or a member of a group affiliated with the Congress of Aboriginal Peoples, which represents Indigenous people living off-reserve.

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Indigenous suppliers must also be registered on an official list. When National Post asked Indigenous Services Canada (ISC) about GHI’s application, a spokesperson replied that the startup “never completed” it.

Since Boissonnault and Anderson split the company ownership 50-50, both would have to be Indigenous for GHI to meet the program’s criteria.

Boissonnault appears to have made contradictory statements about his heritage over the years.

In 2021, he told Xtra, an online LGBTQ magazine, that he was “a white, cisgender member of the community.”

During his first term as an MP, Boissonnault was among nine MPs in the Liberal party’s Indigenous caucus, starting in 2016.

But a year earlier, his name had not been included on a Liberal party press release identifying the eight Indigenous Liberals who won their seats in the September 2015 federal election.

In 2017, Boissonault told The Canadian Press that he was “‘non-status adoptive Cree,” a heritage traced back to a maternal great-grandmother in the family that adopted him.

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He mentioned his great-grandmother in Parliament at least five times before he was voted out in the 2019 election.

After Boissonnault won the Edmonton Centre seat back in 2021, he was no longer listed as a member of the Liberal Indigenous caucus.

Hansen did not reply to the National Post’s questions about whether the minister’s understanding of his heritage had changed and, if so, why.

Anderson’s father, Edward, told National Post that he is himself a member of the NunatuKavut Community Council (NCC), a group based in Labrador.

The NCC declined to confirm whether Stephen Anderson is a member.

A court ruling in June clarified that the federal government’s letter of agreement with the NCC does not itself grant it Indigenous rights, although future negotiations with the government could someday grant those rights.

The Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami, a national organization that advocates for Inuit rights, does not recognize the NCC as Indigenous. The PSIB, by contrast, recognizes confirmed members of the Labrador-based group because the NCC is an affiliate of the Congress of Aboriginal Peoples.

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Arthur Schafer, the director of University of Manitoba’s Centre for Professional and Applied Ethics, said that for the PSIB to be effective, the federal government must consistently impose consequences on anyone who makes a false claim.

This includes political office holders, he said. “As a member of Parliament and in cabinet in particular, he has to be accountable,” Schafer said.

If Boissonnault or his former partner cannot produce documents supporting GHI’s application as Indigenous-owned, he said, “It would be appropriate for him to resign from the cabinet or for the prime minister to expel him from the cabinet.”

Boissonnault has distanced himself from GHI over the last few months, telling the parliamentary ethics committee recently that he had “surrendered” his GHI shares. The committee has been investigating texts leaked to reporters that show Anderson referring to business communications with someone at GHI named “Randy” after Boissonnault was appointed to cabinet and was required by law to no longer be involved in the business.

Anderson has also admitted he lied to a reporter about the identity of the second “Randy,” although he has still refused to publicly identify who the other “Randy” is.

Boissonnault says it is not him.

National Post

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