Government Operations committee  That's right.

Government Operations committee  I think it's a fair concern. The same concern would be shared especially in the outsourcing industry, which involves companies or organizations turning part of their business out to another company to run more efficiently. From a contracting perspective, there are ways to mitig

Government Operations committee  I don't recall it, and I can't say I've seen it in the draft documents that have been issued over the last few years. But there have been discussions about that as a possibility of inclusion in the tender process. As I think I stated earlier today, we've said that if the governm

Government Operations committee  As an example, if we as a carrier provided all those connections and every floor was a different department, and it was a different network connection, and each one sold at a different price, we would ultimately consolidate that onto our backbone network and bring the connections

Government Operations committee  It's an interesting analogy. I think it's close, but it's not quite the right analogy. Let me start by suggesting that, I think I'll say, although there are maybe 120, plus or minus, networks of varying sizes, depending on the size of the department, I don't kid myself in that I

Government Operations committee  Sure. For some of your statement here, I could say you're right, but we could design around all of these things. We could design diversity to make sure that it's a multi-carrier type of solution or that it has a diversity so that you wouldn't have the situation you've just enunci

Government Operations committee  Certainly you could choose to structure the procurement however you see is most appropriate. I'm not sure about the statistics you've outlined. It's the first I've heard of them, so I'm a little caught off guard. I'm not sure if they're true. You say bandwidth and non-bandwidth.

Government Operations committee  Sir, perhaps I could respond to some of your comments, because I've been waiting for the questions to come through. You did start with a question and I want to get back to that. When I speak to my colleagues in the industry, certainly the large businesses...30% to 40% of the act

Government Operations committee  Yes, absolutely. I do not have the statistics on hand, but during a past meeting of this very committee, I did hear that the volume of business between SMEs and the government continues to increase. Of the procurement tools that have been implemented, I am aware of the TBITS, t

Government Operations committee  To follow up on Linda's comments, I would say that the government has improved how it consults industry in the case of projects it wants to see move ahead. That is obvious. There has been a lot of improvement on that front, as well as increased transparency. We invited several ex

Government Operations committee  Good afternoon, sir. Thank you for your question. The projects being discussed today have been in the planning for the last three years. Our association facilitates effective exchanges between industry and the government of Canada. We attempt to get a unified perspective from th

Government Operations committee  Madam, allow me to add a comment to what Ms. Oliver has just mentioned. I am the President of the Public Sector Business Committee—whose French name I cannot recall right now. The way this committee operates is completely transparent. When we have the opportunity to work with the

Government Operations committee  The answer there is yes; we don't have a problem. The industry doesn't have a problem if the government has an alternate policy intent in its procurement. So if your policy intent is regional development, we'll adhere to the intent and make sure that however we structure the solu

Government Operations committee  Well, are the SMEs doing the work today? Is it something they're doing today that they wouldn't be doing tomorrow? In the network services business, other than a subcontractor to telecommunications companies, I believe the answer is no. So they wouldn't be losing part of a market

Government Operations committee  Today, on the projects we do with the Government of Canada, we engage SMEs in the delivery of some of those solutions—the initial delivery, the regional rollout. We don't have staff right across the country who are able to deliver the service at the requested service level and ma