take place on the traditional territories of various Indigenous communities across Ontario.” OPG achieved Silver certifica- tion through CCAB’s Progressive Aboriginal Program (PAR) program in 2015; two years later, it launched its Indigenous Business Engagement Initiative (IBE). This initiative takes a multi-faceted approach to endorsing Aboriginal procurement. It identifies opportunities for Indigenous partners in contracts and includes criteria in RFPs that relate to a supplier’s ability to engage or partner with Indigenous people or business. It regularly invests in its relationship-building efforts with Indigenous communities. “Since launching the IBE, we’ve had a growing number of Indigenous businesses identified in our database of suppliers through our Indigenous Business Declaration forms. Our supply chain department can now search specifically for Indigenous businesses and track associated spending,” says Jacobsen. “We’ve also seen more proposals come through our RFP process that engage Indigenous businesses on a variety of different levels and we’ve witnessed larger businesses partnering with and promoting Indigenous businesses by ‘unbundling’ contracts. That allows smaller companies to be subcon- tracted for different work.” OPG’s Peter Sutherland Sr. Generating Station project on the New Post Creek The Aboriginal BUSINESS REPORT 21