Thank you very much, Mr. Chair, and apologies in advance. I have some microphone challenges, so I'll do my best to speak in a clear manner.
As mentioned, I'm the director general for the office of small and medium enterprises. One of the key elements of our mandate is to improve access to federal procurement for small and medium enterprises. We have been putting a particular focus on access for disadvantaged groups, and OSME has been working quite hard. We have a group of six regional offices that enable us to have active involvement in communities in providing support and outreach to these communities.
Our activities are basically grouped around three sorts of main areas in terms of how we support. The first area would be awareness, where we try to make sure that we're involved in activities so that we're enabling members of these communities to understand what it is that we offer. We work and participate in different events to make sure there's awareness of OSME and that what we offer is clearly understood.
We also undertake related educational activities. It could be free webinars. It could be presentations on how to bid or on other types of support that will enhance the knowledge of some of these communities on how federal procurement works.
Finally, it's assistance. We are open to folks just reaching out to our offices to have one-on-ones or other supports so they can be walked through and exposed to what they need to know to be confident and want to participate in federal procurement.
We do work quite actively to make sure that we are enabling these communities to understand procurement and to ultimately have success in the federal procurement process.
Thank you.