Thank you very much for the question.
I can tell you that small and medium-sized businesses in Canada have been awarded contracts totalling $5.5 billion a year. That accounts for 35% of the total value of procurements awarded by our department. Over the same period, procurements under $1 million have accounted for nearly 80%. So to answer your question, I would say that the percentage is significant. Averaged out, it's about 40%.
Our department does a lot of outreach to small and medium-sized businesses. Annually, we have about 4,000 contracts with them. We want to make sure that they have access to procurement, that it is easy for them to do business with the federal government and that global competition benefits them. That is very important to us.