Government Operations committee  I think so, yes.

Government Operations committee  At the very least, it was centralized, so that was positive.

Government Operations committee  CFIB has always been reticent about set-asides, and the U of O study did some analysis of the American model. It showed there weren't many noticeable, positive developments from the set-aside program. I would be a bit nervous on that question.

Government Operations committee  Actually, you touched on it right at the end there. The end-of-mandate report by the procurement ombudsman states it very well. I think there's a great fear on the government's part of protecting the crown. Iain's colleague, Janet Thorsteinson, is very big on risk and how oftent

Government Operations committee  The survey in question did have questions—again, in 2009—on OSME. At the time, it wasn't terribly well known. I think now they've done a lot of work to reach out to the supplier community and to do as many presentations and information sessions as possible. I think the problem

Government Operations committee  With regard to the first reading of the bill, you could make an argument that if you're a successful bidder, then you will naturally have positive community impacts just by nature of getting more money and paying your employees or whatever. But yes, the red tape nature of what th

Government Operations committee  When you see these new initiatives, you always understand the reason why they're being proposed. In this case, it's because, of course, fair wages are important. You want to pay people equally and fairly and everything. Again, this is one of those things. When small business owne

Government Operations committee  Just to add to what Iain was saying a moment ago, generally I'm very supportive of a vendor management system. As I mentioned on one of my slides, the first things that they sell themselves with are their reputation, experience, knowledge, and all the rest of it. I think it stand

Government Operations committee  I would absolutely love to do a new study, yes. It's one of those things where we have to be careful how many studies we put into the field to make sure that our members are not overwhelmed by surveys because, as you can understand, there are lots of different topics that affect

Government Operations committee  Thank you very much. Hello, committee members. My name is Louis-Martin Parent, and I represent the Canadian Federation of Independent Business. Thank you for this opportunity to present to you today on SMEs and federal procurement. Thank you especially for your openness to my pr