National program aims to level playing field for Black entrepreneurs

B.C.-based organization helps owners navigate deal process

- DARRYL GREER

Asha Wheeldon, the founder of B.C.-based Kula Foods, said going through the certification program helped her assess her company’s capabilities while demystifying the systems governments and corporations use for procurement.

Governments and corporations in Canada spend billions each year procuring products and services, but Jackee Kasandy says that historically barely any has gone to businesses owned by Black people, and she wants that to change.

Kasandy heads the British Columbia-based Black Entrepreneurs and Businesses of Canada Society, which now offers a certification program for Black-owned businesses to help owners navigate the lucrative but complicated world of government and corporate procurement.

The program is being run in partnership with Public Services and Procurement Canada.

“We know that the government buys just absolutely everything,” she said. “So it’s great to do business with the government and supply to the government.”

She said when she discovered “almost zero” government procurement contracts were going to Blackowned businesses, her organization set out to find out why.