Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Gentlemen, thanks for joining us.
Mr. Parent, thanks for taking time out to beam in.
I want to follow up on Mr. Christie's comment about OSME. It is a phenomenal resource. We used it in Edmonton just last week for a town hall on how to sell to the government. A lot of the feedback we received that day directed toward OSME was concerning, as Mr. Parent mentioned—and it came up a lot—the difficulty of dealing with business, the complexity. I love the quote here: “Dealing with federal tenders is too painful to bother.”
That, of course, comes up in the procurement ombudsman's annual report. I think 25 of the top 32 issues were all concerning red tape.
I want to wrap it around to a couple of government initiatives. One is a private member's bill, Bill C-344, which is about community benefits. It provides the minister with the authority to require an assessment of community benefits as part of an RFP process. To me, this adds a huge level of red tape and also a large amount of uncertainty because it does not define what a community benefit is, but does allow the minister to demand that a small business provide an assessment.
I wonder if I can get feedback from CFIB and from you, gentlemen, about this possible bill coming down.