My favourite question is, who is CATA? You may remember us from a few years ago. We were a little concerned about reverse options, so you know that when governments make a misstep we're fairly vocal and fairly engaged with the community, and we hope we're providing some good guidance. I think it's important to understand who we are compared to some of the other groups you've been hearing from.
In the not-for-profit sector, there are many special interest groups. I used to work for one, the Mining Association of Canada, and we addressed very specifically that vertical market in the interests of mining companies.
I would suggest that CATA is not a special interest group. We're basically a community, and our interest is to create the “innovation nation”. The innovation nation is something Terry Matthews has well defined. He's our national spokesperson, so you get a feeling for what our values are. He has created enterprises. He has walked the talk, so we really reflect everything that he understands in values within Canada.
We have to get our share of the production and distribution of goods and services. The innovation nation has many components, ranging from procurement to leadership to export sales, and that's what we're all about. We rank 14th and we're working to get us to first place, and procurement is one aspect of that.
With whom do we consult? In South Carolina right now, we have a group with BMW, Intel, and Cisco looking at the network vehicle.
What are the future technology needs, and how can Canadians supply into that market? We have a group called Women in Technology, working with the Status of Women, looking at how we can set role models for young Canadians and how we can advance the whole leadership among women professionals within the technology sector.
We're working with the National Research Council and the Canadian police forces to look at national security, not only the technologies but the methodologies, to make sure our transportation is safe and that we're a world leader in this area.
We also have Internet service providers as part of our group, and with them, we'd like to congratulate you on the spam legislation.
Many other areas deal with green technology, but it's not a special interest. We are really committed to Canada getting its fair share going forward, and that's how we're looking at procurement.
The second way we're different is that we value research. Our offices are located within the university, so when you look at us, you'll see major research projects, with PricewaterhouseCoopers dealing with performance management. We deal with the adoption of technology. We work with Microsoft on this. We have a professional research team that makes sure we follow the correct methodologies.
It's much too easy to be a special interest group and only advocate your interests. We think it's much more important to have context, in that you look at everything within context, which is what procurement is.
The next part, in addition to the research on biased approach, is that we line up experts who really don't have a self-interest, and we have, I think, one of the top CIOs in Canada. Maybe you've seen Charles's background: Alcatel, Nortel, health care industries, gold medal winner. When we do the research, we find an expert who is able to articulate that in an unbiased, clear way. I think that's good public policy direction, and that's what we're going to try to do today.
I'm not the expert in procurement, but I can say unequivocally that we have consulted across Canada. We've consulted a broad community. We've tried to be fair, transparent, and quite honest in our advice, in that we are not a special interest group.
Charles, with that background, I will turn it over to you.