Government Operations committee  We have some hard data, but in large measure we have to rely on the U.S. government for information on that. We know there is a healthy amount of Canadian supply involved in supplying the U.S. government, but we'd have to investigate with them through their data sources how to me

Government Operations committee  There are two aspects where we can maximize Canadian content. The first is for large military procurements where we can declare an exemption from trade law, for the military, for the really big military, and there we make sure that there are significant Canadian industrial and re

Government Operations committee  Yes, it's pretty much dollar for dollar. So the capital cost of the planes we're buying, for example, have to be matched by the same dollar value of industrial and regional benefits to Canadian companies.

Government Operations committee  It falls into two parts. First, my understanding of what Industry Canada does is that they try to maximize the indirect benefits to Canadian industry—in other words, Canadian industries that would supply components to actually be used in the equipment, or Canadian companies that

Government Operations committee  We haven't tried to do that yet.

Government Operations committee  I can do the first half. Do you want to rescue me?

Government Operations committee  Right. Industry Canada looked very hard at that to see two things: whether there are Canadian companies that are already qualified to provide that kind of service; and then secondly, whether there is a way that Canadian companies can be trained, as it were, or licensed by the m

Government Operations committee  Exactly. When we buy from a Canadian-owned company or a foreign-owned company, we don't measure the Canadian part of the value of their product versus the foreign-produced part of the product. We don't do that. It's possible to calculate those things, but that's what the Departme

Government Operations committee  The way the agreement was negotiated, if you had a program in place that provided domestic preference in procurement, you were allowed to keep it. It was grandfathered. But if you didn't have a program like that, you were prohibited from introducing one.

Government Operations committee  I'm not sure that's a disadvantage for our companies, and I'll explain why. First of all, the free trade agreement in North America allows free trade across borders. What that means is it gives better access for our companies to bid on U.S. government business, just as it allows

Government Operations committee  We don't actually evaluate the Canadian content, except when trade agreements don't apply. In that case, we try to maximize Canadian content through the industrial and regional benefits policy. On all of those excluded large contracts, for example, military contracts in which we

Government Operations committee  We don't have them, but it might be possible for Statistics Canada to break that out. It depends on how their data is organized. I think it would be a challenge for even Statistics Canada to be able to break that out. We can't do it, because we don't differentiate between the U.S

Government Operations committee  Thanks a lot, George. What I'd like to do is take you through this deck and give you a bit of insight into what we're doing in the Office of Small and Medium Enterprises and how we're helping smaller companies do business with the Government of Canada. On slide number ten there