Mr. Morley may want to weigh in on this as well. For us, yes, there are a lot of different ways we want to support local industry. Procurement is only one of them. We as a municipality don't have that. We had a case in the last municipal election where we contracted out our facilitation of online voting to a Spanish company. I wasn't the mayor at the time, but I think most people would look at that contract and say there's a threshold at which you would want to support a local company. The Spanish company defeated a local company for that work, a start-up local company that has done some work in other parts of Canada, and it was a concern to people. It doesn't have to be about the total dollar value of the contract. It can be in the grading of the overall awarding of a contract, so there could be a percentage of it determined by what the impact on the local economy is.
We're told that under CETA we will still have that discretion, that we will have the discretion to use local criteria to select the best tender possible.
Yes, there are a number of ways. There are grants. There is procurement. There are lots of different ways we can support local business. We want our businesses to do well here, but we also want our businesses to export around the world as well.
Fred.