Government Operations committee  You have to understand that as SMEs we're taking time away from our jobs to do this on behalf of all SMEs. I in particular met with my MP, Pierre Poilievre, several months ago, and he actually issued the letter to Minister Fortier, which I never heard anything back on. It was bas

Government Operations committee  I'll go back to the consultation process. We've heard nothing of that. It wasn't in anything that came out on June 6. So all we have is the presentation that Mr. Poole did to OCRI, which says that he's going to be awarding 15- to 20-year contracts on a winner-take-all basis for a

Government Operations committee  We were never consulted before the RFI process and we never had any industry consultation after the RFI was released. Our only opportunity was to provide feedback to PWGSC, and when we asked once the feedback had all been received whether there would be further industry consultat

Government Operations committee  We have copies of a presentation that was made directly to ITAC by Mr. Poole, and I can't remember exactly when that occurred.

Government Operations committee  In this town, it's mainly government services. Probably 80% would be involved with government; there's not a lot of industry in this town, other than high-tech companies that typically try to take our employees.

Government Operations committee  That was a long question. As I've stated, it was when the request for information appeared on the government electronic bidding system last December that we had our first indication that the contracts for shared services were only going to be awarded to large integrators based

Government Operations committee  As we stated previously, we're not sure where it's coming from. What we do know is that it's not in the best interests of SMEs. What the Conservatives have been saying continually since they were elected, and before, is that they're here to support SMEs. That's not occurring. I

Government Operations committee  It's a large integrator that has offices in Canada, but they're taking them to their headquarters in the States to spend a few days and see what they can do on a shared system.

Government Operations committee  I don't know if they're located in Virginia.

Government Operations committee  Based on what brief and little feedback we got on this, it pretty much was a fait accompli that they were going with large integrators before the RFI appeared on the street. That's when we woke up to the fact that SMEs were not going to be able to play in this game. It's not jus

Government Operations committee  I've been in this business 35 years.

Government Operations committee  It seems that every couple of years the government comes out with another of these large initiatives. CABiNET came together as an entity in the early nineties because of the procurement model back then, which was called “common purpose” procurement. It was basically lining up a

Government Operations committee  Yes. We've been able to bid on contracts by forming consortiums. Mr. Marshall indicated in his presentation to OCRI in March that consortiums could be put together to bid on this. But with the latest MERX update awarding points to companies for engaging SMEs as subcontractors, th

Government Operations committee  With the latest issue that they put out on June 6?

Government Operations committee  We were told that no further consultation was going to be done on this opportunity, that this was the way it was going to be, and that they would come out with the RFP in the fall.