Good morning and thank you, Chair.
Thank you to the entire committee for inviting us to speak to you today.
My name is Hugh Ralph, and I'm the director of direct sales at Sharp Electronics of Canada. Seated beside me is Dave Montuoro, who is a competitor of mine at Canon Canada. The two of us are such fierce competitors that it's hard to get us in the same room, let alone speak to you with one common voice here today.
What we're here to speak about is really a case study of how not to do a federal procurement, a procurement that will eliminate competition and significantly hurt small and medium-sized businesses across Canada.
Shared Services Canada is in the middle of a plan to consolidate how the federal government procures printers and copiers. The Shared Services plan will create an oligopoly of very large suppliers that will inevitably drive up prices, drive down service levels, and of particular concern, it's a plan that will undermine the small and medium-sized businesses that make up our service and sales dealers across the country.
For example, Sharp Canada has 77 dealer partners with offices in 138 communities from coast to coast to coast. These are the small and medium-sized businesses that I'm speaking about.
I'll pause here and let Dave introduce himself.