Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I think it's important, if we're going to allow companies to come forward with grievances or concerns—and I think it's important that we do that—that we also give an opportunity for the department they are working with to have a transaction.
What we found in the last Parliament was that our chair at the time, who had been a minister previously, identified a situation in which, while she was the minister, an IT company was outraged because of their inability to get a contract with the federal government, and because of legal constraints she was not able to respond to it. In fact, the reality was that the IT company had never been able to demonstrate that the product they were trying to sell the government actually worked. So for months upon months, she was crucified by this company in the media, but because of legal obligations she was unable to respond.
So if we're going to give, in this case, a platform for somebody to bring a grievance, I think we have to think about legal considerations and we also should think about the response, if there is a way to give a response. I think what we all want to see is that medium and small businesses have full and unlimited access to contracts within the federal government, but we don't want to just be a platform for grievances, and sometimes unfounded grievances, to be aired.