Merci, monsieur.
Yes, we are very active with the federal government in terms of day-to-day consultations. We offer our views, either solicited or unsolicited, on all of the projects the government has, and indeed we have a program where we have been advocating for the last few years for a national ICT strategy.
We find that the government is now poised...I guess because all the members of government these days are somewhat younger and they know more about technology. They seem to be more interested and more focused on leveraging ICT in Canada as an enabler in terms of leadership and competition for competitiveness for Canada.
We are very involved in the consultation process. We take advantage every time the department has any type of offering, where they offer the private sector to consult. We've also worked on many of the projects for professional services for temporary help, by helping government to design the model.
We find that the people we work with in Public Works and Government Services are very open to dealing with the private sector. They have us in, they hear what we say; we don't always get what we want, but they're very fair and they listen to us. So we're happy about that, and we're hopeful that this will continue.
We do have key messages for the government in terms of an ICT strategy. Part of it is procurement, but also it's government as a model user and government being more efficient and using technology, particularly at a time when there is a downturn in the economy. This is the time to invest in ICT infrastructure in government so that when we come out of the recession, we are going to be more competitive. Other jurisdictions in the world are doing that.
This is the kind of advice we give when we're asked to consult.