Minister’s former business banned from contracts due to its ‘conduct’

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OTTAWA — The federal government deemed MP Randy Boissonnault’s pandemic startup, Global Health Imports Corporation, ineligible for contracts on Friday, citing the company’s “conduct.”

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Boissonnault ended his role with the company in 2021, after he was elected as a Liberal MP, and is no longer a shareholder in the company.

Boissonnault, who co-founded GHI with former Edmonton hockey coach Stephen Anderson in 2020 and owned 50 per cent of the company until last summer, resigned from his position as employment minister on Nov. 20, after National Post uncovered correspondence about federal contract bids in which the company had claimed Indigenous identity.

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Public Services and Procurement Canada (PSPC) did not respond by deadline to questions about what specific incidents led to the decision. Indigenous and non-Indigenous competitors nevertheless welcomed the decision for clarifying what business practices procurement officials consider unacceptable in a contractor.

“It sounds like they’re setting a new standard,” said Shannin Metatawabin, CEO of the National Aboriginal Capital Corporations Association (NACCA).

If PSPC’s decision is linked to the company’s unsupported claims to be “Aboriginal owned,” he explained, then “it’s a good thing that the government is stepping up and disqualifying a business that was claiming Indigeneity.”

GHI’s owner Stephen Anderson could not be reached for comment. Boissonnault was also unavailable.

For GHI to qualify for the federal Procurement Strategy for Indigenous Business (PSIB), a program that grants priority access to First Nations, Métis and Inuit businesses, both Boissonnault and Anderson would have to be Indigenous.

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For a supplier instrumental in the decision, the ruling was a relief.

“It’s about time,” said Michael R. Weber, a lawyer for the California-based supplier 4M Medical. Weber submitted a report to Edmonton police that a PSPC official said had factored into the decision to provisionally suspend GHI on Nov. 20, 2024.

“I would hope the Canadian people would be a bit upset that it wasn’t done earlier,” he said.

In an affidavit supporting a lawsuit against GHI — the company has faced more than half a dozen — 4M Medical stated that Anderson took a deposit of US$250,000 then did not deliver medical gloves as promised.

PSPC’s Office of Supplier Integrity and Compliance, created in May 2024, has broad latitude to declare ineligibility, including any contract that “may bring the federal procurement system into public disrepute.”

The same day that Boissonnault resigned from his cabinet post, Elections Canada issued a stop work order on GHI’s $28,000 contract to supply disposable gloves. The agency said that GHI had never been called up to work and did not receive any funds. GHI did not identify itself as Indigenous on that bid, a spokesperson said.

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The decision was a step toward fairness, said Phil Davidson, president of the federal supplier Telecom Computer and a member of Chippewas of Georgina Island First Nation. “I’m glad to see that people who unjustly take advantage of the program are removed,” he said.

National Post
psonntag@postmedia.com

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