My attempt, as I stated in my opening, was to try to be transparent, recognizing the important nature of the study you are undertaking. We wanted to be very clear and transparent with you about where we are going with respect to the nature of the network. There's a lot of talk about interoperability and the enterprise approach. We have shared with you the “Network Modernization Way Forward” document.
I think people often think of the network as one simple thing. We've tried to include diagrams for you, for industry and for every interested party on just how complex the network is, with the different topologies. There was a sense that it was just the Cisco environment. We tried to include all of the different vendors we have in that environment and to lay out where we're going. We also included our network and security strategy to demonstrate how we have been transparent with industry about what we are doing and how we intend to go from a strategic document in the “Way Forward” to something that is more technical in nature, and to share with you the types and nature of the conversations we are having.
I also felt it would be helpful, so we put together information for parliamentarians about the nature of our work and what we've done. Given the number of questions that have been asked of me, there is a sense that we don't compete a lot of our procurements. We tried proactively to share with you the volume we do, how much of it is done competitively and how much of it is sole source, not just in sheer numbers, but what that represents in terms of dollar values.
Because of previous interest and because we feel a social responsibility, we tried to include how much of those things go to small and medium-sized enterprises. With data, we were able to target indigenous-specific businesses. Moving forward, we hope to be able to expand that to more employment equity groups, women-led businesses and other employment equity-led businesses.
Given the number of procurements that we do, while we are trying to advance that enterprise approach, we are also trying to encourage Canadian businesses of all sizes to interact with us.