Thank you for the question.
On the first segment of your question, I would say that it hasn't happened—I'm going by memory here—that the minister would ask me to meet with someone. Now, my office may be approached by the minister's office; that is a possibility.
The department has a number of points of entry. Our Office of Small and Medium Enterprises, in the last three years, if I remember the numbers, has had contact with 70,000, either individuals or companies, and we want to promote these relationships so that they can get a better appreciation for how to be successful at getting contracts.
In the department there's a basic rule, and it goes like this. When we tender, we don't talk to people. When it is a contract management issue, people can talk to people, because there's a contract in place and solutions must be found to the problem. Contracts can be complicated, in interpretation and otherwise. Very often our philosophy is to try to tackle issues and deal with them at the lowest common denominator: between the contract officer and the person who probably has an issue. And on the front end, as the small and medium-sized enterprise, or regarding representations that can be made by people outside a bidding, the department does have dealings with individuals. We have quite a few, actually. And in 70,000 contacts--phone calls or otherwise--there is a substantial amount of back and forth between the department and people who want to do business with the government.