Where do I begin? In the Office of Small and Medium Enterprises, we like to describe ourselves as small but mighty. When the government, in a budget that really didn't have a lot of new money, gives you $40 million for a two-year pilot, you feel a lot mightier.
We have really taken that responsibility very seriously, and everybody in our regional offices, for example, has become involved in the outreach. We were already doing seminars on how to do business with the Government of Canada, but now it's not only how to do business with the Government of Canada, but “Did you know that we might also be interested in buying the things you haven't sold yet?”
It adds an element of offering and service that the industry is very hungry for. The feedback we've had from industry, which is the only way I can really measure the impact, has been phenomenal. The two things that have been said that would be somewhat negative are that it's only a pilot—that's a bummer—and that $40 million doesn't seem like enough money to buy all the innovations in Canada.
I figure that's pretty good feedback, and the impact, obviously, of the good feedback has been to really energize us to buy as many great things as we can.