Government Operations committee  Good morning. Thank you again for inviting me to address a subject that is of tremendous interest to me. I listened with interest to the presentation to you on Tuesday of my colleague Joseph Jordan, newly appointed to the US SBA, so I'm actually very pleased to have this questi

Government Operations committee  First of all, thank you so much, Mr. Chair, for giving me the floor. Thank you so much for the comment that the seminar was well received by your constituencies. Obviously that's good for us to know. It's also good for us to know what improvements we could make. One of the impr

Government Operations committee  Are you asking me if I am aware of the details?

Government Operations committee  The Office of Small and Medium Enterprises does not make procurement requests.

Government Operations committee  The changes were discussed at the Government Office Furniture Advisory Committee—or GOFAC—on which we have a representative. So we participate in the discussions between the industry and Public Works on procurement, but the purchasing process is not our responsibility. Our role i

Government Operations committee  I just wanted to make a very quick intervention.

Government Operations committee  I'll make it quick anyway. I just wanted to make a very quick intervention that yes, Public Works is genuinely interested in dialogue. We've met various people in IT service branch as well as acquisitions branch. We have met with and continue to meet with CABiNET and other associ

Government Operations committee  Thank you for that question. Yes, there are many, many organizations. We work very closely both with associations and with the chambers of commerce in various areas. As well, there are a lot of different kinds of partnerships, the result of which is, for instance, that some of o

Government Operations committee  I have to confess that I'm not here really as an acquisition specialist, so I can't really speak knowledgeably about the acquisitions direction. I believe that Liliane Saint Pierre, who is the ADM for acquisitions, will be before you next week. She's in a much better position to

Government Operations committee  We'll do it in your office.

Government Operations committee  That was based on total value of contracts let by Public Works.

Government Operations committee  Our mandate is to assist small and medium enterprises across the country to do business with the Government of Canada.

Government Operations committee  As I was starting to mention, our objectives are threefold. Our first objective is to reach out to SMEs across the country so that we can cover a large geographic territory. Our second objective obviously is to link the demand with the supply so that suppliers are aware of opport

Government Operations committee  First of all, thank you for inviting us today, and thank you for the opportunity to answer this question and introduce some of the facts around the work of OSME. I think there is some lack of understanding of the role of OSME. Just to put this to rest, we do not engage in assis

Government Operations committee  Absolutely. When we look at contract history, we do look at the size of the businesses so that we can pull the information to know whether or not we are servicing.... Essentially 99.9% of all Canadian businesses are small and medium enterprises. It is a big focus. The way the nu