Certainly, we've used both OSME and CICP, and for OSME, it was just to get educated on the programs of PWGSC. You have to remember that I started my first company in 1998. I did the exit to Entrust in 2004. In those six years, there was no help in terms of understanding the procurement process of the government. We tried again and again to respond to these RFPs and got nowhere. OSME certainly helped us understand what a standing offer is, how to get a supply arrangement, and how to do these task-based services and processes. We had no idea about any of these programs. That's where the OSME role was very important.
CICP was a different role for us. To us, CICP is part of OSME and is really trying to get Canadian innovation into the government. They had such a flood of applications for the CIC program, so that tells you that there is demand and there is a requirement.
SMEs are not considered to be very innovative; however, they are innovative, and the CIC program demonstrates that SMEs are innovative. From that perspective, I think you do need an overseer for CICP. I don't necessarily agree that you should be moving it off to a different department altogether, but I think you should absolutely strengthen and better fund the CIC program so that you have the right calibre of people who are going through these reviews, evaluating innovation and so on, and then bringing it to the federal government.