Canada’s Indigenous Services minister refused to say Monday if non-Indigenous companies that won contracts by claiming to be Indigenous should pay back the value of contracts that were meant for First Nations, Inuit or Métis businesses., in partnership with researchers at First Nations University of Canada, raised questions about whether some of those companies are truly owned and controlled by Indigenous people.
“You have people that are pretending to be Indigenous in order to get money that they’re not supposed to be accessing,” Genuis said. Global News previously reported that until two years ago, companies could simply self-identify as Indigenous to access the contracts.