Thank you, Mr. Chair and honourable members, for extending to ITAC the opportunity to meet with you this afternoon and to participate in the study of the effectiveness of the Office of Small and Medium Enterprises and the Canadian innovation and commercialization program.
At the outset, I would like to communicate that ITAC is in support of both of these initiatives.
If you don't know ITAC, it is the national association of technology companies. Our members are 300-plus companies in Canada. They're as large as CGI, RIM, OpenText, and Rogers, but the vast majority of our members are small and medium-sized businesses. These companies, we believe, are vitally important to our industry in many respects. They represent the future of ICT.
ITAC's mandate has always been to promote the public policy environment, to conduct the effective growth of the industry, as well as to grow the knowledge-based sector in general. Our primary mandate has been to provide a strong, innovative, competitive ICT industry; more accelerated use of productivity-enhancing ICT tools; a fair, progressive public sector business regime in Canada; advancement of e-health; a smart regulatory regime in Canada; and a robust, competitive ICT talent pool for the country.
I hope today I will be able to demonstrate that both OSME and CICP advance all of these causes and the promotion of a strong, innovative ICT industry in Canada while supporting the need for a fair, progressive public sector business regime.
With respect to OSME, in 2005 the office was a major contributor to the important dialogue between the ICT vendor community and the federal government through ITAC public sector business committees. They also participated in various other programs and panels we ran throughout the year.
It supports our core belief that Canada's public sector procurement regime must play a strategic role in the promotion of Canadian ingenuity among the small and emerging businesses. In our view, it plays an essential role in ensuring that the $7-billion public sector ICT market is accessible to all. With respect to CICP, it is the key instrument of fulfillment of its role in the Canadian innovation and commercialization program in the budget of 2010.
ITAC has been in discussion with government, from as early as 2005, about the need for a program. When CICP was announced, it was clearly framed as a policy instrument for the support of innovation rather than a procurement instrument.
To our knowledge, several companies have participated through this process and benefited from it. We fully endorsed the announcement in July, the second call for expression of interest, and actively encouraged our members to participate in this program.
I would be remiss if I didn't comment following yesterday's Jenkins report.
Ladies and gentlemen, it was outlined that the commercialization process leads to new innovation. First, of course, you start with the idea. Then you apply the knowledge of a robust talent pool to develop a prototype and have a trial customer. Then you take the learning from this trial and start the commercialization process. At this stage, you need the infusion of capital to keep the lights on and the process growing. And finally, you do need access to both the local and global markets.
The Canadian government's willingness to play a central role in this process through an organized program is critical to small business. It is also wise public policy.
I cannot overstate ITAC's support for CICP. The only recommendation I can make for its improvement is to make it a permanent part of the Canadian innovation policy.
In this regard, we agree with the expert panel that reported yesterday. Their support for CICP and their suggestions on how to strengthen this program are worth repeating here.
ITAC values its relationship with OSME. Last year we ran an ingenious program looking at various small businesses. To that extent, buyandsell.gc.ca, the government program, became one of the finalists in the event. It sets the best practice for small to mid-sized enterprises who are planning their own web-based program looking outside, “facing” portals.
In conclusion, I simply want to restate the strong support from the ITAC industry for the Office of Small and Medium Enterprises. We're committed to providing any support it may need with its program and, if required, active consultation to further improve its effectiveness.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.