Madam Speaker, I want to thank my colleague. I did not get to talk about that in my speech because I ran out of time.
We have learned that the government, under the former minister who is no longer in the House now, established the Office of Small and Medium Enterprises. The purpose of this office is to promote SMEs with respect to federal government procurement. Its mandate is as follows:
OSME improves SMEs access to government contract opportunities by reducing procurement barriers, simplifying the contracting process, providing advice to SMEs wishing to do business with the government, collaborating to improve procurement policies and best practices and working with SMEs to ensure their concerns are brought forward and heard.
This office was established in 2005. When SMEs appeared as witnesses before the committee, members of the committee were surprised to hear that they were unaware of the Office of Small and Medium Enterprises.
This office has a $7 million budget and employs 25 people in six regions in the country. We might have expected that OSME, an agency that takes into account the interests of small and medium enterprises, would question Public Works and Government Services Canada on the megaprojects it is moving ahead with, since they are going to affect small and medium enterprises. That was not the case.
In the United States there is an office where small and medium enterprises can have access to almost every government contract. A percentage was set and it is not be lowered. If it was decided that 50% of small and medium enterprises in the U.S. should get government contracts, then they make sure that happens. That is not the case here.
I am not saying we have to follow the U.S. model, but the mechanisms we have in place do not seem to be working. If that is the case, then we have to protect our SMEs another way.