Human Resources committee  The other thing we were referring to on the training side was a program that we modelled after something called the “new hire program”. It was introduced in the late 1990s, and it gave employers an EI holiday when they hired young people. It encouraged employers to hire youth. It

Human Resources committee  Again, we're still analyzing a lot of this data, but part of the answer to that is that they're not well publicized, so they don't necessarily know about these programs. Many of them are programs that maybe their employees know about, but it's good for them to know about them a

Government Operations committee  Thank you very much. Thank you for accommodating me so I could have the opportunity to present to you today on small and medium-sized businesses' access to procurement at the federal government level. You should each have a copy of a slide deck, which I will walk through as we g

Government Operations committee  Yes, absolutely, and I think the most valuable part of the information that we collect is the comments. We actually go back to our members and ask them more details about them. There's no doubt about it, when you go through the comments, there seems to be frustration, and I thi

Government Operations committee  It's difficult to say. The last time we did survey research on procurement was in 1995. I tried to compare the two, and they're not directly comparable; however, in 1995 we found around 40% of SMEs at that point--though it was a more targeted survey--were actually selling to the

Government Operations committee  The second. The second study was conducted in 2005 and the other one in 2008. However, the first one was not a survey: it was a statement of principles.

Government Operations committee  I think that, one, they don't know about it. It's only in the large centres. Again, it exists in six large centres and not in any other part of the country, so when you talk about smaller communities or rural businesses, it's not something they would ever think about. Certainly w

Government Operations committee  I couldn't answer on the foreign sales. We do know that our members are certainly involved much more in exporting, and that includes to other governments. We know that this is a growing part of the business. I couldn't tell you whether or not they're using OSME for that particula

Government Operations committee  Yes, I would say that's correct. I'm not so sure it's because of the work of OSME but it's more to do with some of the policies that have been building within the Department of Public Works in terms of taking small contracts and building them into larger contracts, making them mo

Government Operations committee  Honestly, I have to say that in a survey we did in 2008, I don't think one comment talked about the OSME. I don't think there was one comment in that entire survey that mentioned the OSME—

Government Operations committee  —so I would say no, they're probably not doing that aspect of it very well.

Government Operations committee  The frustrations are with the procurement process overall, not so much specifically with OSME. The fact is, they cannot find contracts. When they do find the contracts, MERX can be very difficult to navigate and very expensive to use. When they do find the contracts, the paperwor

Government Operations committee  I'd direct it to whoever could answer the question most completely.

Government Operations committee  No.

Government Operations committee  I was simply trying to understand what sort of data are being used. You talked about 48% of the value of the business coming from SMEs. I'm trying to understand where that 48% is coming from. How do they define that 48% as coming from SMEs? Do they actually ask the businesses how