Thank you very much, Madam Chair, and thank you very much, Mr. Minto, for appearing before us today. Congratulations on the work you've done so far.
I do think the work your office is undertaking is extremely important, but I do have some concerns. We know there are a number of companies that have dealings with the federal government that have concerns about procurement. Some of those have been shown to be quite valid. We know we have a lot of small and medium-sized businesses that are finding it very difficult to access the federal government and participate in the procurement process. They feel they're being left out. That comes to the point you identified towards the end of your presentation as being key, which is on the independence of your office. Certainly, I would have liked to see your position being one of an officer of Parliament, but unfortunately that's not the way it was set up.
My concern is that you're going to be operating under the minister. I understand there's a memorandum of understanding, but given the fact that you're under the minister and you're within Public Works, how do we get around the fact that a lot of people who have procurement concerns are going to look at this and say that the person they'd go to with complaints is in the same department they have concerns about? In other words, you're under the same minister as the department they're complaining about. How do we get around that? How can you assure people your independence will be in place?