Good morning, everyone.
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
We are very grateful to you for allowing us to provide you with an overview of federal government procurement. The colleagues with me today are, to my right, Normand Masse, Director General of the Services and Specialized Acquisitions Management Sector, and John Rath-Wilson, Acting Chief Operating Officer, Information Technology Services Branch. Shereen Miller, Director General of the Small and Medium Enterprises Sector, is to my left.
Mr. Chair, in a moment, I will ask Mr. Masse to give you a brief overview of federal government procurement.
Before I give him the floor, I want to highlight some important facts. First, in 2007-08, 49% of the total value of business done by PWGSC with Canadian suppliers went to SMEs. That is up from 34% in 2004-05.
Second, MERX, the government electronic tendering system, has been free of charge to access all government procurement opportunities since 2005. The PWGSC office of small and medium-sized enterprises offers free seminars on how to navigate MERX. Also, further to national consultations completed last summer, PWGSC has delivered improvements, such as the popular search feature, to make MERX more user-friendly.
About 11,000 transactions are carried out through MERX every year. All unsuccessful suppliers are entitled to debrief, as stated in the Government of Canada contracting policy.
Finally, with regard to shared information technology services and the Government Enterprise Network Services, no decision has been made. Our consultations did not end until February and the department is presently conducting its analysis. We will submit our plan to this committee as stipulated in the motion that was passed last June.
Mr. Chair, Mr. Masse will now take you through the presentation you have before you.